
* -~ -V 1 % 




1 



TEN YEAES 



ON 



THE EUPHRATES; 



OR , 



PEIMITIVE MISSIONARY POLICY ILLTJSTEATED. 



BY REV. C. H. WHEELER, 

MISSIONARY IN EASTERN TURKEY. 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
BY REV. N. G. CLARK, D. D., 

COR. SEC. A. B. C. E. M. 



Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 
— Mark xvi. 15. 

Upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall 
not prevail against it. — Matt. xvi. 18. 





PUBLISHED BY THE ^ 

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

28 COKNHILL, BOSTON. 




Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 18G8, by 
THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of 

Massachusetts. 



TO 



MY MOTHER, 

WHO, FROM MY EARLIEST YEARS, 

LED ME TO THE PRAYER-MEETING AND THE MONTHLY 
CONCERT, AND THUS TO CHRIST AND AN 
INTEREST IN MISSIONS, 

AND 

THEN, IN HER AGE AND WIDOWHOOD, SENT ME 
TO THE FOREIGN FIELD, 



THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED. 



INTRODUCTION. 



oO^f^Oo 

The volume here offered to the Christian public 
is a record of faith, toil, and success in the mission- 
ary work. The many who have had the pleasure 
of listening to Mr. Wheeler will enjoy a more full 
exhibition of the work in which he has been en- 
gaged than it was possible for him to give in a sin- 
gle address. The larger number who have not 
heard him will gladly welcome from his pen such 
an account of the actual method pursued and the 
progress made in the evangelization of eastern 
Turkey. 

One of the greatest wants of our churches is a 
clear, definite notion of the missionary work. To 
many minds the evangelization of the world is so 
nearly impossible — impossible at least within any 
limited period — as to have but slight hold upon 
their Christian sympathies. To labor for it is a 
duty, to be sure, because commanded by our Lord, 

v 



VI 



INTRODUCTION. 



and its realization some day is a proper object of 
faith and prayer, because promised in revelation ; 
but, as compared with the more immediate calls to 
Christian effort at home, it is too remote to stir the 
heart, and prompt to earnest, prayerful labor and 
sacrifice to bring it about. 

This little volume will do much to supply this 
want. It sets forth by precept and abundant illus- 
tration the object and method of the missionary 
enterprise. It is an earnest, practical work, by an 
earnest, practical man. It presents just those facts 
which a practical man wants to know, because he 
is enabled by them to see just what the work is, 
how it is done, and to be done, in order to the 
evangelization of the world. No thoughtful man 
can rise from its perusal without new faith in the 
power of the gospel, and new hope of its speedy 
and final triumph. The problem is no longer im- 
practicable or impossible, or remote of solution. 
The economy of men and means here illustrated 
will be a surprise even to most who claim to be 
familiar with the history of missions ; while the 
results attained will furnish most unmistakable 
evidence of the presence and power of our Lord 
fulfilling the promise coupled with his last com- 
jnriand. 



INTRODUCTION. 



VII 



In this view, this volume is a most valuable con- 
tribution to the current missionary literature of 
the time. It is a full, faithful exhibition of the 
apostolic method of conducting missions. It shows 
that the method of the apostles is the true method 
for our time; that the object of the missionary en- 
terprise is not to introduce civilization, to Anglicize 
or Americanize other nations, not to transfer the 
entire system of civilization and culture which the 
gospel has developed among us, but to introduce 
the gospel itself, as the divinely-appointed means 
for the regeneration of all nations. It is then to 
be left to work out its legitimate results in the 
social and moral elevation of those who receive it, 
in accordance with their peculiar intellectual and 
moral endowments. The essential thing to be ac- 
complished by missionary labor is " to plant the 
Christian church, and to set its members at work 
for Christ." 

"Men from America and England," says our au- 
thor, " can never do all the Christian work neces- 
sary to the complete evangelization of the heathen 
world. The churches of Asia, Africa, and the 
islands of the sea, must, and can, and will do it, if 
we only establish them with this end in view." 

" Whatever else we may do, however many in- 



VIII 



INTRODUCTION. 



dividual souls we may save, our missionary work 
will be little, if any, better than a failure, if we fail 
to plant such churches. In saying that the work 
is a failure, I do not mean that those who give to 
the different nations the Bible in their own tongues 
make a failure. This work may be well, nobly 
done, and much other incidental good be accom- 
plished. That Bible may be put into the hands 
of many persons, and general knowledge of Chris- 
tian duty be disseminated, which, if wisely directed 
to its proper ends, would result in still greater 
good ; but in the failure to secure the great, the sin- 
gle ultimate aim of missionary efforts, — the plant- 
ing of an independent, self-sustaining, self-propa- 
gating Christianity, — these incidental benefits can 
no more be cited as evidence of success than could 
the roads made and the canals dug by our armies 
in the South be adduced as evidence of success, if 
those armies had failed to put down the rebellion." 

It is the exhibition of this method in all its 
practical details, clearly apprehended and steadily 
pursued through many trials and difficulties, for a 
period of ten years, and vindicated at last by re- 
markable successes, that gives such a value to this 
volume at the present time. 

To evangelize a region of country larger than 



INT ROD UCTION. 



IX 



the State of Massachusetts, covered with hundreds 
of villages and cities, with a population of from 
four to five hundred thousand souls, speaking three 
different languages, — this was the work undertaken 
by three married missionaries, assisted a part of 
the time by one single lady in a female boarding- 
school. They entered upon it in humble reliance 
upon Bible truth, the blessing of the Holy Spirit, 
and the presence of their great Leader. They made 
Harpoot the base of their operations ; selected fit 
centers for influence amid the surrounding villa- 
ges, set up schools, and j)ut young men of promise 
upon special training to become preachers and 
teachers, gathered believers into churches, ordained 
pastors over them, and taught the people to sup- 
port their own Christian institutions, and to engage 
vigorously in the work of home evangelization ; 
till now, with the addition of the Arabkir field, 
their work is represented by thirteen churches, — 
six of them entirely independent, — by sixty-six 
towns and cities in which the gospel is preached, 
by seventy-eight native preachers and pastors, by 
thousands of men and women reading the word of 
God in their own language, and by thousands more 
of children and youth gathered into schools ; in a 
word.bv the foundations of a Christian civilization 



X 



INTRODUCTION. 



laid upon a sure basis in the affections of an ear- 
nest, self-sacrificing, Christian community. In a 
few years, when the gospel shall have been intro- 
duced into about one-twelfth of the villages and 
cities of the country, and enough light-centers 
have been set up to secure, with the divine bless- 
ing, the complete success of the Christian work 
through the piety and zeal of the native churches, 
the missionaries may leave this field for the " re- 
gions beyond." The pecuniary expenditure for 
the carrying on of this work, for the salaries of 
missionaries, for aid in the support of native preach- 
ers and pastors, in church-building, and in schools, 
including the partial support of pupils in the two 
seminaries, now numbering about ninety pupils, 
has been, upon the average, a little short of six 
thousand dollars a year ! Yet here were men 
enough and money enough for the prosecution of 
the work. Such is the economy, as to men and 
means, of the apostolic method here revived. In 
accordance with this method, the eastern Turkey 
Mission ask for but twelve men, to occupy four 
centers, in order to the evangelization of a region 
four times the size of the State of New York, with 
a population of three millions or more. In accord- 
ance with this method, the advance of the mis- 



INTR OJJ UCTION. 



XI 



sionary work during the last ten years in western 
Asia, mostly in the Armenian Missions, is marked 
by the following figures : native pastors increased 
from five to thirty-four; native churches from 
thirty-four to sixty-seven ; church-members from 
one thousand one hundred and twenty-seven to three 
thousand two hundred and forty-eight ; and con- 
tributions from five hundred dollars to over twelve 
thousand dollars per year. 

Degraded and given over to superstition as the 
people have been, yet these Missions among nomi- 
nal Christians have had a great advantage over 
those in purely heathen lands, in consequence of 
the belief in one God and in the Scriptures. The 
object and the method of missionary effort are 
everywhere the same, however, as illustrated by 
apostolic example, whether in the synagogues of 
the Jews or amid heathen temples. 

It is by such a method that the evangelization 
of the world becomes a possible problem for the 
present generation of Christians. In view of the 
preparation made during the last fifty years, the 
acquaintance gained with the peculiarities of dif- 
ferent countries and nations, the languages mas- 
tered, the Scriptures translated, the prejudices 
overcome, the transforming power of the gospel 



XII 



INTRODUCTION. 



illustrated so widely by the lives of missionaries 
and of native Christians ; and in view of the won- 
derful providences by which the world is now open 
to Christian effort, and made one by easy inter- 
communication, and bound together by commercial 
intercourse, the lessons of this volume have a spe- 
cial significance ; they open up to the Christian 
church the solemn duty and the high privilege of 
a world's evangelization. 

The example of Harpoot may seem to be excep- 
tional. It may be so to some extent in the pecu- 
liar character of the men there, working harmoni- 
ously together, unlike, but not unequal, supple- 
menting each the others. An interior station has 
some advantages over those exposed to the de- 
moralizing influences of too early contact with civ- 
ilization without the gospel. It is exceptional, too, 
in the fact that this station is almost the only one 
that has had an adequate number of men to carry 
on the work in its many details, and to exercise 
the proper superintendence of the native agency. 
One or two men could not have done it ; and yet 
it is sad to see how often in the past, and now also, 
one or two men are left to attempt it ; and, if pos- 
sible, it is yet more sad to see other centers of 
equal promise left unoccupied, when such immense 



INTRODUCTION. 



XIII 



results to the kingdom of Christ seem in waiting 
as the reward of missionary labor. 
• But, aside from these general considerations, this 
work will be of great value and interest to all mis- 
sionaries, and to all who contemplate engaging in 
the missionary work. It is rich in suggestions, not 
only of the true method of labor, but of practical 
experience in dealing with all classes of persons, and 
not least with native Christians, — -in developing 
among a people, ground down by political and ec- 
clesiastical oppression, a spirit of manly indepen- 
dence, in bringing them to a willing and hearty 
support of their own institutions, and to engaging 
in Christian labor for those about them. To such, 
the chapters on " The Work to be done," " The Na- 
tive Ministry," " The Seminaries," " The Position of 
the Churches and Pastors," will be of special inter- 
est. The whole volume, in short, may well become 
a "vade mecum" to every missionary candidate, 
and will hardly fail of furnishing useful hints to 
the tried veteran in the service. 

The brief survey of the missions in western 
Asia, the historical and geographical details of the 
different fields, will suffice to give the general 
reader an accurate conception of the condition and 
prospects of the Christian work in this part of the 
globe, now the center of so much political interest. 



XIV 



INTRODUCTION. 



The maps and the illustrations give increased defi- 
niteness to the graphic descriptions of the writer. 
The fresh incidents of missionary life, the occa- 
sional side references to customs at home, the keen 
insight into character, the warm glow of an ear- 
nest Christian spirit thoroughly devoted to this 
great work, but, more than all, the record of success, 
of independent, self-supporting Christian churches, 
of finished work, as the fruit of these ten years of 
faith and toil, of patient continuance in well-doing 
amid hopes sometimes disappointed, amid the 
ingratitude and slowness of heart of some, and the 
loving faith and cheerful sacrifices of others, — all 
these varied elements combine to make this an 
attractive volume to all who love the cause of 
Christ and the progress of his kingdom. 

Possibly the story of the sacrifices which the 
native Christians of eastern Turkey are willing to 
make for Him they have so recently learned to 
love may quicken the faith of believers at home, 
inspire new hope, and prompt to greater effort to 
extend the blessings of the gospel to all mankind. 



CONTENTS. 



oo^oo 

CHAPTER I. 

MISSIONS IN TURKEY AND PERSIA. 

Purpose of the book — "American Board" — Annual meetings of 
missions — The Syria Mission — Education — Mission to Central 
Turkey — Language — Apostolic policy — Mission to Western Tur- 
key — Stations — Languages — The press — Effort to make the 
churches self-supporting — Difficulties — Modern crusaders — _ZVes- 
torian Mission — Mountain Nestorians — Bader Khan Bey — The 
Female Seminary — Amadia and Mosul — Missionary graves — 
Mission to Eastern Turkey — Nineveh — Babylon — Ur of the 
Chaldees — Mardin — Diarbekir — Mr. Walker's grave — Labors — 
Bitlis — Van — Erzroom — Harpoot. ..... 15 

CHAPTER II. 

EASTERN TURKEY — DIVISIONS AND RACES — HARPOOT 

MISSION-FIELD. 

Geography of the country — Mesopotamia — Assyria — Battle-field — 
Armenian king Abgar, and Jesus — Gregory the " Illuminator *' — ■ 
Boundaries of Armenia — Koordistan — Surface, climate, and pro- 
, ductions — Ararat — "A little wine "—Mingled population — Arabs — 
Yezidees — Koords — Kuzzlebashes — Dada — Pantheism — Greeks 
— Hypocrisy — Turks — Cretan war — The " sick man " — Turkish 
toleration, and Russian and Greek intolerance — Mohammedanism 
and Mars' Hill — Nominal Christians — Sects — Armenians — Ori- 
gin — History — Martyrs — Character — Reverence for the Scrip- 
tures — Fitness to be missionaries — Want of stability — Mission- 
aries in Harpoot — The field — Eden — Position and scenery of 
Harpoot — Principal cities of the district — Gospel in advance of 
roads. . . . . . . . . .38 



XVI 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE WORK TO BE DONE. 

Little child and heathen mother — Work of missions not alms-giving 

— Paul — Dangers — Free pills and gospel — Spoiled church and 
discouraged missionary — "Poor helpers'" salaries— The gospel 
ministry cheaper than that of false systems — Godliness gain — A 
"free" gospel not valued — Pastorless church — Harpoot — The 
subscription-paper — Clamor silenced — The man in search of a 
" cheap religion " — The deceived man — Professed friends hinder- 
ing the missionary work — Niggardly Christians poor pillars in the 
church — Schools and seminaries not introductory to the gospel, 

# but secured as a fruit of evangelization — The gospel a power of 
itself — Leaven, not bread — Not a system, but a systematizer — Es- 
sentials and non-essentials — Missionaries to plant the Christian 
Church — The rebellion to be put down 68 

CHAPTER IV. 

PASTORS, SELF-SUPPORT, SELF-GOVERNMENT, THE 

CHURCHES' THREEFOLD CORD, 

Apostolic example — Paul, Titus, Timothy — " Ordain elders in every 
church" — Harpoot church — Seven years' struggle — Missionary 
pastors not to be found — Not fit — Not supported — Eight of the 
churches to furnish their own ministry — Each church to choose its 
ownpastor — The Perchenj " call " — The lot cast — salaries of pas- 
tors — Missionary aid in supporting — The churches independent 
— They and their pastors "commended to the Lord" and let 
alone — Communion etiquette — Faith and practice — Ephesian 
elders — Cretans — Hard work in Harpoot — Methods of action — 
Added territory and churches — " Christ sent us not to baptize, 
but to preach the gospel " — The Malatia church begging the sac- 
raments — " The pretended cripple " — Missionaries' strength — to 
what given 92 

CHAPTER V. 

THE TRUTH READ. 

First works — Ignorance of the people — Missionary pastors — Palu 
women whipped into reading — Results — "Little teachers" — 
Schools — Expense — Statistics — Armenian schools — Book sales 

— Power of the Bible — " Thief Maghak" — Najaran — The men 



CONTEXTS. 



XVII 



beaten — Korpeh — Osman Bey and the honest tenant — Kevork 
Dashjian and the.borrowed Bible — A profligate saved — " You do 
the preaching, I'll take the beatings " — The enraged choolgee and 
his primer — The Perchenj teacher and his Bible — Church formed 

— Home-missionary society— Hooeli — " O Lord, give us open 
doors and hearts " — The disobedient mob — Chapel built — The 
Bible-laden donkey 113 

: CHAPTER VI. 

THE TRUTH PREACHED AND SUNG. 

Primitive preachers — Paul's preaching a model for the missionary 

— " Do you know how to read? " — The missionary a map-making 
pioneer — Hats and audiences — No broad aisle — " Miserable sin- 
ner and not ashamed to own it " *- " Thou art the man " — The 
repentant thief — The law preached — No motto-sermons — Order 
of Sabbath services in Harpoot — Languages — Congregational 
singing — Chapels — How built — Expense — No pews — Dedi- 
cated to God — Evangelization there and at home — " Free 
churches." . 143 

•CHAPTER VII. 

THE NATIVE MINISTRY — HARPOOT SEMINARY. 

The difficult problem — Churches to furnish their own ministry — 
Where to be educated — Plan of Harpoot Seminary — Terms of 
admission — Study and labor united — Missionary superintendence 
in winter — Graduation — Licensure — Ordination — Seminary 
studies — Systematic theology — Preaching — "What is a good ser- 
mon? — Care in selecting men — Hirelings rejected — Care in sup- 
porting men — Salaries — The plot — " Can't you cast that care 
too on Jesus ? " — "I wonder the earth didn't swallow me up " — 
Pecuniary matters carried to Jesus — Care in educating men — 
The Bible as a teacher — Pupils not overeducated — Trained in 
their own vernacular — No English — Syria High School — Bebek 

— No smoking — ■ Ministerial dignity overestimated — The cure — 
Statistics of seminary — Prospective transfer to the care of the 
churches — Garabed Piiibosian — His letter. . 162 

CHAPTER VIII. 

y 

HARPOOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 
No unmarried men ordained — Object of the seminary — Nursery — 

2 



XVIII 



CONTENTS. 



The Bible the chief text-book — The blundering readers — Day 
pupils — Buying tickets and books — The two weeping candidates 

— Public interest excited — Teachers prepared — Girls as boarding 
pupils — Terms of admission — Protestants at a premium in the 
matrimonial market — Missionary teachers not for mere com- 
mon schools — Statistics of seminary — Graduation — Diplomas — 
Christian spirit of pupils — Kohar — Her evangelistic labors — 
" The Lord has been with us all the time " — Sabbath labor of pu- 
pils in villages — Letter from Miss West — The young widows — 
The Mardin woman — The " Mothers' Association" — Bible and 
theology lessons — " God's plan of employing man" — All made 
easy — Missionaries agreed — Need of a female seminary in Mar- 
din — Proposed seminary of the churches — Kohar's contribution 

— Letter from Miss "West — Closing exercises of seminary in 1867 

— " Chewing the cud" — Christ's " diplomas " — The five foreign 
missionaries — The gifts — The " reunion " — Singing in five lan- 
guages — The " good-bye." 186 

CHAPTER IX. 

FRUITS. 

Arabs, Koords, and Turks — Fanaticism gone — Crescent and cross — 
Armenians — Priesthood despised — Monasteries impoverished — 
Papists and the Bible — Preachers and preaching — The feeble 
brother — "Send us a senior, if you please" — Moral reform — 
The quarrelsome women — Temperance — " Woman's rights " se- 
cured — "All the missionaries' wives angels" — Converts — Sta- 
tistics of churches — Churches in prospect — Geghi Kasabah — 
Sarkis and his Testament — Palu. and the twelve women — The 
"devout and honorable women" of Choonkoosh — Women's 
plastering-bee — " Harpoot Evangelical Union " organized — Con- 
stitution — Its work — Education Society — Bible societies — 
"Why don't you feed your donkey?" — Home missions — The 
female evangelist of Harpoot — Foreign missions — Young man 
in search of light — The interesting monthly concert — The impa- 
tient little boys of Diarbekir 222 

CHAPTER X. 

TITHE-GIVING — REVIVAL. 

Plan of campaign — Hoh — The donkey's food — The hungry preacher 
The gospel put upon its own merits — Shepik — The sluggish 



CONTENTS. XIX 

pastor — Blind " J olm Concordance " — " Bring ye all the tithes " 

— Deep poverty — The Lord's store-house — Pastor recalled — 
Meeting of Evangelical Union — Means of securing a revival — 
Saints in biographies — Discussions — Resolution on tithe-giving — 
Hulakegh — The arrow in the mark — Collectors dispensed with 

— The scoured cents — The converted tithe-giver — The windows 
of heaven opened — The converted infidel — "lam that cursed 
fig-tree " — Restitution made — The awakened blasphemer — The 
cross too heavy — The converted Unitarian — Characteristics 
of the revival — Work of the "feeble" brethren — The city 
moved — Prayer-meetings — Hooeli — The crowded chapel — Scor- 
ners learning to pray — The Bible adding a story to the houses — 
The seven aged widows — Pride rebuked and humbled — The im- 
patient women — The Pharisee converted in answer to prayer — 
Christians learning to pray — Danger escaped. . . . 248 

CHAPTER XL 

POSITION OF THE CHURCHES AND PASTORS. 

The two committees — Independence and self-support united — Un- 
called-for anxiety — The rejected motion — The loved timber — 
" Bless the Lord for that word " — The circular — " Subjection to 
the beneficence of others!" — The Koordish work — "May the 
Lord give you a happy new year" — Covetousness not yet all 
gone — Beggars here at home ! — Enthusiastic liberality not piety 

— Source of our joy — The day dawning — Only one-fourteenth 
of the cities and villages to be occupied by us — One missionary 
to one-fourth of a million — Medical missionaries' work — Vase 
of flowers and banyan tree — Three resolutions — Trouble may come 

— Hours of discouragement — Causes of gratitude — Noble band of 
preachers — Pentecostal blessings anticipated — Minot's Ledge 
light-house — Mist on Harpoot plain — Sun of Righteousness 
arisen 286 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE FOUR WANTS. 

All to help — Popular ignorance of missions — Missionary publica- 
tions not read — Monthly concert neglected — First way of help- 
ing — Help by prayer — Praying by " substitutes " — God to be 
"inquired of" — The "prayer-list" — Third mode of helping — 
Selfish professors to be set at work — Look out for number one — 



XX 



CONTENTS. 



Sleeping-car religion — Fourth want — The polyglot — " He's not 
a bit of a gentleman " — " Pray always " — Common sense needed 
— The fastidious man — Knowledge of human nature — Courage 
and firmness of purpose — The victim of conservative timidity — 
Missionary ditching and changing base — " Consecrated " gener- 
als — The missionary campaign — " First-class " work — Urgent 
call for men — The American drawing-room — Catholic and Pagan 
invaders — The Chinese to be evangelized at home — James, and 
the Jerusalem pastorate — Laborers to seek work, not place — Mis- 
sions not to convert, but evangelize the world — Results seen — 
Missionary engineering — Call for men — Some unable to sing in 
heaven 306 



A few words on the pronunciation of proper names will aid the 
reader. 

a as in father ; e. g., Adana, Harpoot, Van, Marsovan. 

e as a in lady ; i. e., a without the vanish or ee sound which is 
heard when a is pronounced separately. 

i as in machine; e.g., Sivas, pronounced See-vas; Shepik, Sha- 
peek ; Mardin, Mar-deen. 

H as oo ; e. g., Mosul, pronounced Mo-sool. 

ai as i in fine; e. g., Haine, Hi-na. 

eh as e; as, Korpeh, Kor-pa. 

a following i is pronounced separately ; e. g., Amadia, A-ma-dee-a ; 
Sophia, So-fee-a ; Malatia, Ma-la-tee-a ; Diarbekir, Dee-ar-bek-eer. 

eu has the sound of u in further ; e. g., Pashaeunk. 

gh as a guttural, g hard ; e. g., Aghansi, pronounced A-gan-see. 
Gh in Eski Zaghra is silent. 

g is uniformly hard ; e.g., Egin. 

ch as in chain, e. g., Chermook, Choonkoosh. 

kh like the guttural German ch. If the k be silent and the h pro- 
nounced with a strong aspiration, it is very nearly correct ; e. g., 
Klmnoos, Ha-noos ; Kharpoot, Har-poot, and now so spelled. 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 




<K)f^O° 

CHAPTER I. 

MISSIONS IN TURKEY AND PERSIA. 

OULD that "mine adversary" might 
have the weariness, and perhaps also 
<tp^j? the reproach, of writing this book, and 
^ leave to me the more congenial employ- 
ment of meeting the friends of Missions face to 
face, and rehearsing what God, by his Word 
and Spirit, has been doing in the field commit- 
ted to my associates and myself. But the 
interest manifested by many audiences in a 
part of the story, as told by word of mouth, 
has led me to feel that a more full narration 
by the pen would be interesting and profitable, 
especially among that great majority whom no 
verbal account can reach. Hence this book. 



16 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



the purpose of which is sufficiently indicated 
by the title-page. 

I have not the time, the knowledge, nor the 
disposition to attempt a history of the missionary 
work in Turkey, from the day when those noble 
and honored pioneers, Messrs. Fiske, Parsons, 
Smith, D wight, Goodell, and their associates, 
opened the missionary campaign in Syria and 
western Turkey. That labor I leave to other 
and abler hands, and shall confine myself chiefly 
to the more limited district in which my im- 
mediate associates and myself have labored. 
A glance at the whole field will, however, give 
a more definite idea of this particular portion 
of it and of the work which is going on both 
there and here. If the pronoun " I " occur 
quite frequently, it will be remembered that 
the story is necessarily to a great extent one 
of personal reminiscences, and that any at- 
tempt to eliminate this element and to speak 
in the third person would only result in mak- 
ing the narration modestly formal, if not dull, 
in place of being more vivid and lifelike. 

The mission-field occupied by the American 



MISSIONS IJST TURKEY AND PERSIA. 17 



Board * in Turkey and Persia has been geo- 
graphically divided at different times to suit 
the convenience of the missionaries occupying 
the different stations, who, or at least a part of 
them, are obliged to meet once a year to con- 
sult upon the plans and measures for the ensu- 
ing year, and to agree upon the amount of 
money which shall be asked from the Board for 
carrying out their plans. Since Turkey, with 
here and there an unimportant exception, has 
no railroads nor even carriage roads, and loco- 
motion must be slowly and laboriously effected 
upon the backs of camels, horses, mules, or 
donkeys, the territory occupied must be quite 
minutely divided, in order to prevent too great 
an expenditure of time, money, and strength in 
reaching the place of annual meeting. 

At present, the divisions are five. The terri- 
tory lying along the eastern shore of the Med- 
iterranean from 83° to 35° north latitude, and 
embracing the cities Beirut, Sidon, Tripoli, 

* This term, or the term "Board," wherever used in this volume, 
applies to the "American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- 
sions/' which is the organ of the Congregational and ISew School 
Presbyterian Churches. 



18 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



and othe rs, IS called the " Syria Mission." The 
language used in this Mission is Arabic, in 
which the entire Bible, and other religious 
books, have been given to the people. It is, 
however, a discouraging fact that, while this 
mission-field lias been occupied more than two- 
score years, during which time much has been 
done for education by establishing numerous 
schools, and at length a seminary, and a col- 
lege* of the highest grade, yet, owing to un- 
toward circumstances, little, if anything, has 
been done in the establishment of independent, 
living Christian churches ; and the church in 
Beirut, organized in 1848, is still without a 
pastor of its own. It is, on the other hand, 
encouraging to know that some of our brethren 
there are beginning to feel that this state of 
tilings must not longer exist. 

Passing northward, to the territory lying 
about the gulf of Scanderoon, and embracing 
the cities of Antioch, Adana, Aintab, Marash, 
and Oorfa (Ur of the Ghaidees), we enter the 

* This college, which is at Beirut, is not under missionary control, 
nor supported by funds of the American Board. 



HUSSIONS IN TURKEY AND PERSIA. 19 

• 

" Mission to Central Turkey," so called from 
its somewhat central location in the empire. 
Here our hearts are cheered at meeting a peo- 
ple, who, exiles from Armenia, the home of 
their fathers, and having for the most part lost 
their national language and adopted the Turk- 
ish, the language of their Moslem conquerors 
and oppressors, are in their lonely exile, as 
were the captive sorrowing Jews in Babylon, 
more susceptible of religious impressions, and 
more ready to give heed to divine admonitions, 
than are the haughty Arabic-speaking popula- 
tions to the south of them. 

Happily, all the missionaries here have 
given due weight to the example of the first 
foreign Christian missionaries, who went from 
Antioch in the southern, to do their missionary 
work in the north-western, part of this present 
missionary field, and, in placing the church 
of God in its completeness foremost, have re- 
ceived the seal of divine approval in a truly 
spiritual work, and over the hundreds of con- 
verts whom the Master has honored them to 
gather into churches have had the pleasure of 



20 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

m 

putting pastors who seem to be men chosen of 
God to be overseers of his flock. It is to be 
devoutly hoped that, having so far imitated 
their great exemplar, the chosen apostle to the 
Gentiles, our brethren will be bold enough to 
follow him to the end, to " commend to the 
Lord " the churches which they plant, and, ex- 
cept so far as apostolic counsel may be needed 
and accepted, to leave them alone to manage 
their own ecclesiastical affairs in their own 
way,* looking, as the churches of every land 
which are worthy of the name must look, to 
Christ alone as their guide and ruler. 

The territory lying to the north-west of this 
Central Mission, and including the larger 
part of Asia Minor, and that portion of Tur- 
key in Europe lying south of the Balkan 
Mountains, is called the " Mission to Western 
Turkey." . In this mission, Sophia, Adrianopie, 
Philippopolis, Eski-zaghra, and Constantinople, 
in European Turkey, and Smyrna, Broosa, Nic- 
omedia, Marsovan, Sivas, and Caesarea, in Tur- 



* This expression is used in no denominational sense, since all 
Protestant churches do this, or at least profess to. 



MISSIONS IN TURKEY AND PERSIA. 21 



key iii Asia, are occupied by missionaries of 
the Board. The languages here used are 
chiefly three : the Bulgarian, among the peo- 
ple of that name in the first four cities men- 
tioned, the Armenian, among a portion of the 
Armenians, and the Turkish, among the mass of 
the people, including Armenians and Bulgari- 
ans, as well as Turks and Greeks and the other 
numerous races which make up that strange 
conglomerate, the population of Turkey. From 
the mission press in Constantinople, Dr. Riggs 
has given to the Armenians of northern and 
eastern Turkey an admirable translation of the 
Bible in their own tongue, and entered upon 
the same work for the Bulgarians in their lan- 
guage. Dr. Goodell, previous to his death, 
gave to the Armenians of the Central Mis- 
sion and elsewhere an Armeno-Turkish Bible, 
that is, in the Turkish language, printed in the 
Armenian character, and Dr. Schauffler does 
the same for the Turks, by revising the trans- 
lation which has been made in their tongue, 
the Arabo-Turkish. 

From the same press has also been issued 



22 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



the Grseco-Turkish Bible, and the four gospels 
in Koormangie Koordish, using the Armenian 
alphabet. This is probably the only book ever 
printed in that language, which is used not 
only by a large portion of the Koords, but also 
by many thousands of Armenians, Turks, Yez- 
idees, Jacobites, and Nestorians in Koordistan, 
the eastern portion of Turkey in Asia. From 
this same press have gone forth many thousands 
of copies of such books as The Saint's Rest, 
Pilgrim's Progress, Doddridge's Rise and 
Progress, Flavel on Keeping the Heart, Mary 
Lothrop, Work of the Holy Spirit, Nelson's 
Cause and Cure of Infidelity, James's Anxious 
Inquirer, Tract Primer, Hymn Books, etc., also 
thousands of tracts in various languages and 
on various subjects, and semi-monthly papers 
in Armenian and Armeno-Turkish. 

An earnest effort, which we hope will also 
be persistent and successful, is now being made 
to throw upon the churches in this mission the 
support of their own pastors, as well as to give 
pastors to those still without them. In this 
hard task, made harder by the opposition of 



MISSIONS IN TURKEY AND PERSIA. 23 



certain native preachers, who, having been 
wrongly educated, and too long supported from 
the Board's treasury, are now unwilling to de- 
pend upon their own people for support, our 
brethren need the hearty support, the sympa- 
thy, and the prayers, of all the friends of mis- 
sions. While those who labor in the missionary 
work at Beirut, Smyrna, Constantinople, and 
other cities along the coast, where the people 
come more into contact with the outside world, 
enjoy one advantage in the greater develop- 
ment of manly independence among the people, 
giving greater stability to the purposes and 
character of converts, this advantage is proba- 
bly more than counterbalanced by the perni- 
cious influence which that same outside world 
too often exerts, even when it bears the name 
of Christian, and sometimes even the distinct- 
ive title of evangelical. It is a sad fact that 
some Christians, and even some Christian min- 
isters, who follow the fashionable crowd of 
crusaders to the Orient and the " Holy Land," 
sometimes seem to leave their own holiness be- 
hind them quite as really, if not as flagrantly, 



24 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



as did some of their knightly predecessors of 
the middle ages. Though guilty of no positive 
immorality, they sometimes make the impres- 
sion upon the people that they are far from 
being the saintly men they have been supposed 
to be, — far, at least, from having that deep, 
practical interest in the salvation of men, and 
in the speedy and complete success of the mis- 
sionary work, which might rightfully be ex- 
pected. 

When to the influence of some such as these 
is added that of the careless pleasure-seekers 
who visit the Orient because it is fashionable, 
and because it is a convenient way of spending 
money and killing time, it can be seen that the 
missionaries who labor upon the coast not only 
have a pleasure which we in the interior do 
not, in seeing travelers from Christian Europe 
and America, but that, in planting truly Chris- 
tian churches, they meet with some difficulties 
which are mostly unknown to us. Their posi- 
tion is specially trying when, as is sometimes 
the case, travelers lend a ready ear to the com- 
plaints of dissatisfied helpers and others, and 



MISSIONS W TURKEY AND PEE ST A. 25 

thus increase the existing prejudice against the 

missionaries both there and at home. Said 

* 

one of these travelers to me on board a steamer 
a few weeks since, " Foreign missions are all a 
humbug ; and missionaries only go out to have 
a comfortable time. I've been in China and 
Japan, and seen for myself, and I know. My 
friends have been accustomed to give for the 
cause, but I am going home to persuade them 
to stop, and to give for home missions." How 
many visits of such travelers as this would be 
required to undo the work of a missionary in 
Jedo, Pekin, or Constantinople ? We, at least, 
amid the primitive darkness and sin of our 
mission-field, far off from the route of mercan- 
tile and fashionable travel, console ourselves 
with the thought, that, while deprived of an 
occasional angel's visit from a warm-hearted 
Christian brother from the home-land, we are 
also delivered from those trials with which 
other comers are sure to sandwich the food which 
the angels bring. 

Taking a steamer from Constantinople up the 
Bosphorus and along the southern shore of the 



26 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



Black Sea to Trebizond, and thence making a 
long overland journey to Oroomiah in Persia, 
we reach the center of the " Nestorian Mission," 
whose territory lies partly in Persia and partly 
in Turkey. The Persian Nestorians live almost 
entirely upon the rich plain which stretches 
from north to south between Oroomiah Lake and 
the mountain range on the west. In the moun- 
tains, which are mostly within the limits of 
Turkey, live the mountain Nestorians, inter- 
mingled with their hereditary enemies, the 
Koords. Amid these lofty ranges was the 
home of Bader Khan Bey, that terrible Koor- 
dish chieftain who in 1846 massacred such num- 
bers of the poor Nestorians. Age after age the 
fierce hordes of barbarian conquerors swept 
past from Tartary, and successively overran 
Asia Minor ; but they tried in vain to subdue 
the brave Nestorians, and were only dashed 
and broken against the crags of their mountain 
homes, till Bader Khan Bey first treacherously 
slaughtered the Nestorians and then was him- 
self attacked and subdued by the Turks. These 
now hold precarious sway over all the region ; 



missions in turkey and Persia. 27 

and that remnant of his people whom, like the 
Waldenses among the Alps, God for centuries 
hid in safety and comparative purity of faith 
and practice among the craggy mountains, are, 
in chastisement for their more modern defec- 
tion and sin, compelled to serve the Turk. 

The number of the Nestorians has generally 
been very much overestimated, some writers 
even talking of hundreds of thousands. They 
do not probably exceed seventy thousand ; and a 
recent estimate by one of the younger mission- 
aries makes those on the plain twenty thousand, 
and those in the mountains not over thirty-five 
thousand. It is cause for thankfulness that the 
labors of the able and devoted band of mission- 
aries who since 1834 have toiled, and many of 
them laid down their lives for this people, have 
been so richly blessed in bringing scores and 
hundreds to a knowledge of Christ.* It is, at 

* It is especially gratifying to see the impression which Miss Fisk 
and Miss Rice, of the Female Seminary, — the former of whom is now 
in heaven, — have made on the women under their training. The" 
graduates of that seminary are everywhere a distinct class, the differ- 
ence in character between them and those around them being appar- 
ent evcwa to one who, like myself, can not speak their language. 

3 



28 TEN TEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

the same time, painful to know that, owing to 
a variety of untoward influences, but little 
progress has been made in planting Christian 
institutions supported and controlled by the 
people, the converts still receiving the com- 
munion from missionary hands. Says one of 
their missionaries, u The poor people can bear 
adversity better than prosperity. We are fail- 
ing in planting the gospel among them in 
any form that will stand by its own hold. 
Souls are saved, and not a few, but anything 
more seems to be a failure." Another of the 
missionaries describes the mountain Nestori- 
ans as " lawless, belligerent, predatory, and 
vagrant," and as " less ready to receive the gos- 
pel than has been supposed." The fact seems 
to be that, since the days of Dr. Grant, and his 
romantic and heroic efforts for " the lost tribes 
of Israel," these mountains of Koordistan have 
been clothed by the churches in rainbow-hues, 
which a great expense of missionary money and 
life has hardly yet dissipated, except to the eyes 
of the practical men on the ground. The plan - 
of occupying and evangelizing those mountains, 



MISSIONS IN turkey and p erst a. 29 



whose impenetrable snows of winter and mala- 
rious rice-fields of summer render their fastnes- 
ses inaccessible or unsafe to the missionary ex- 
cept during two months of spring and two of 
autumn, has now been changed, and Amadia is 
no longer looked to as a prospective station and 
grave for devoted men and women who are 
ready to die, but ought, if permitted, to live to 
labor for Christ. 

With Amadia passes also Mosul from the list 
of stations to be occupied permanently by mis- 
sionaries, since it was as a base of operations for 
Amadia and the mountain Nestorians that this 
city was first occupied by missionaries, rather 
than, as now, by a native laborer. As we look 
upon the scattered graves of Mr. and Mrs. 
Mitchell, Drs. Grant and Lobdell, Mr. Hinsdale, 
Mrs. Laurie, the first and the second Mrs. Wil- 
liams, and Mrs. Marsh, and think of these lives 
as the price of a " base for Amadia," we can 
only call to mind other Christian heroes, who 
fell in impracticable attempts to enter Richmond 
from a wrong base, and console ourselves with 
the reflection that God chooses his own time and 



30 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



way for taking home those whom he calls from 
their finished earthly work to higher service in 
heaven. 

And now we are on the banks of the Tigris, 
and within the limits of the fifth and last Mission, 
— that to " Eastern Turkey," which was con- 
stituted by a union of what was formerly known 
as the " Assyrian Mission " with the eastern sta- 
tions of what was then called the " Northern 
Armenian Mission," the remainder of which is 
now known as the " Mission to Western Tur- 
key." On the eastern bank of the Tigris, op- 
posite the city of Mosul, are the mounds which 
cover the ruins of Nineveh, that " exceeding 
great city of three days' journey," whose politi- 
cal life Jonah was sent to prolong for a brief 
season. The oriental legend that the fish im- 
proved the three days in taking the prophet 
around the continent of Africa, and that he at 
length "vomited him out" upon the banks of 
the Tigris opposite the city, where God said to 
him, " Go unto Nineveh' and preach," does not 
so evidently conflict with the text as do some 



MISSIONS W TURKEY AND PERSIA. 31 



so-called evangelical ways of explaining the 
story. 

Some two hundred miles to the south, upon 
the banks of the Euphrates, lie the desolations 
of Babylon, swept, according to the word of the 
Lord, " with the besom of destruction," and 
made " a possession for the bittern, and pools of 
water." To the south-west, west, and north- 
west stretch away the fertile plains of Mesopo- 
tamia, now almost entirely desolate, and given 
up to ranging robber Arabs. Some three hun- 
dred miles distant, a little north of west, is 
Oorfa (Ur of the Chaldees), Abraham's city, 
which is now the most eastern station of the 
Mission to Central Turkey ; and about one hun- 
dred miles to the east of Oorfa, and two hun- 
dred to the north-west from Mosul, perched 
upon the southern face of the mountains of 
Jebel Toor, is the city of Mar din, the most 
southern station of the Mission to Eastern Tur- 
key, where, in the absence of its only mission- 
aries, Mr. and Mrs. Williams, at Harpoot, a 
newly-organized church, with the pastor of their 
choice supported by themselves, hold up the 



32 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



lamp of gospel light amid the surrounding Ja- 
cobite, Papal, and Mohammedan darkness. Mar- 
din has a population of some twenty thousand, 
about equally divided between nominal Chris- 
tians and Mohammedans. The region around, 
like that around Mosul, where also there is a 
church partially self-supporting, is, with here 
and there a faintly-glimmering exception, in 
the deepest spiritual darkness ; since the call for 
help for the lone missionary in this Arabic-speak- 
ing portion of the field has been long sent across 
the waters in vain. None have yet given heed, 
and perhaps none will, till the Master compel 
some other recreant Jonah to heed his command 
to preach there the preaching which he bids. 
Sure I am that Mr. and Mrs. Williams will joy- 
fully welcome almost any agency which shall 
bring the two men, with their companions, 
needed to make Mardin one of the four fully 
manned stations * from which we propose to do 
the missionary work in eastern Turkey, so far 

* The name ''station" is applied to a city occupied by missiona- 
ries, and " out-station " to a place occupied by native laborers. The 
four stations above alluded to are Mardin, Erzroom, Harpoot, and 
Van, in each of which it is proposed to have three missionaries. 



MISSIONS IN PERSIA AND TURKEY. 



33 



as it devolves on the American churches to 
do it. 

About sixty miles to the west of north of 
Mar din, upon the western bank of the Tigris, 
lies Diarbekir, a walled city of some fifty thou- 
sand inhabitants, of whom about two-thirds are 
Mohammedans and the rest nominal Christians. 
Just outside the city walls, upon the southern 
side, Mr. Walker made his grave, in August, 1866, 
because, left to labor on alone among a popula- 
tion of half a million within and around the 
city, and trying to do double duty to the bodies 
and the souls of the cholera-smitten population, 
he had not himself vital force enough left to 
profit by the medicines which, when promptly 
administered, had saved others. He was borne 
to his burial amid hundreds who wept, as over 
a father dead, for one whom but a few years 
before they would gladly have driven from their 
city. Two churches — one in Diarbekir itself and 
one in the village of Cutturbul, on the opposite 
side of the Tigris, having a total of one hundred 
and twenty-eight members, with a Protestant 
community in the city, which during 1866 con- 



84 



TEN YEARS ON TJE EUPHRATES. 



tributcd $1150 in gold, supporting all their 
own institutions and doing some missionary 
work — are his epitaph and testimony that he 
pleased God in his brief missionary life of less 
than fourteen years, of which one and a half 
were spent in a visit to his native land. Ex- 
cept occasionally, in winter, Diarbekir will pro- 
bably not again be occupied by missionaries, 
and the great outlying field, chiefly to the east 
and north-east in Koordistan, will be divided 
between the neighboring stations Mardin and 
Harpoot. 

About one hundred and twenty-five miles 
north of east from Diarbekir is Bitlis, a city 
of some twenty thousand inhabitants, of whom 
about three-fifths are Mohammedans, chieflv 
Koords, and the rest nominal Christians, 
among whom the labors of Messrs. Knapp and 
Burbank, the first of whom removed there 
in 1858, were blessed in planting a church of 
seven members and gathering a good congre- 
gation. Both the missionaries with their wives 
were compelled by failure of health to return 
home in 1866, and the church was left in 



MISSIONS IN PERSIA AND TURKEY. 35 



charge of a native preacher, who has since be- 
come its pastor. 

About seventy-five miles east from Bitlis. 
upon the south-eastern shore of a lake bearing 
the same name, lies Van, with its fourteen thou- 
sand Armenians and eleven thousand Moham- 
medans. Semiramis, wife of the Assyrian 
monarch Ninus^ is said to have built this city 
centuries before Nebuchadnezzar enlarged and 
beautified " great Babylon." The walled por- 
tion of the city is close, and in summer is un- 
healthy, fever and ague especially prevailing ; 
but in the gardens on the rising ground out- 
side of the city many healthy locations are 
found, and in some of these the missionaries 
who are yet to come to labor for the large Ar- 
menian and Nestorian and Mohammedan pop- 
ulation accessible from Van as a center must 
make their summer home. 

Passing to the north-west some six, or, in 
winter, twice as many days' journey, we come 
to Erzroom, situated upon the high lands about 
equidistant from Van on the south-east, Tre- 
bizond on the Black Sea on the north-west, and 



36 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



Harpoot (hitherto spelled Kharpoot, and mis- 
pronounced as Karpoot) on the south-west. 
Situated as it is, upon the great traveled route 
between Persia and the outside world, and filled 
with a heterogeneous population of Armenians, 
Koords, Turks, Greeks, Persians, Circassians, 
Russians, and renegade Europeans, and having 
been occupied only feebly and fitfully as a mis- 
sionary station, it is not strange that the mis- 
sionary work in the city and the vast region 
depending upon it has made comparatively lit- 
tle progress. Both of the missionaries recently 
there, Messrs. Parmlee and Pollard, with their 
wives, have been compelled to return home, and, 
in a territory of one hundred and seventy thou- 
sand square miles, with a population of more 
than three millions, among whom Mosul, Mar- 
din, Diarbekir, Bitlis, Brzroom, Trebizond, 
Arabkir, and Harpoot have been, and Van ought 
to be, only Harpoot is, occupied by missionaries. 

Thus a total of seventy-three out-stations oc- 
cupied by native helpers, who number in all 
one hundred and seventeen, making one- 
seventh of all the out-stations, and one -eighth 



MISSIONS IN TURKEY AND PERSIA. 37 

of all the native helpers reported as in the em- 
ploy of the Board in 1866, with two theological 
seminaries and one female seminary, and a 
total of seventy-nine schools, which, though 
largely supported and cared for by the people 
themselves, still demand much missionary 
supervision, — in a word, all of the missionary 
work in this great field, by the departure of 
missionaries to their homes, either in America 
or in the " better land," — has been devolved 
upon Messrs. Allen, Barnum, and Williams, and 
their wives, at Harpoot, with Miss West at the 
head of the female seminary there, and Rev. 
H. S. Barnum and wife, who have recently 
reached the city and begun to learn the lan- 
guage. 



CHAPTER II. 



EASTERN TURKEY. — DIVISIONS AND RACES. — HAR- 

POOT MISSION-FIELD. 

EFORE speaking of the field and work to 
which special attention will be paid, let 
us take a hasty view of the country at 
large and its inhabitants. In the south- 
ern part of the territory of the Mission to 
Eastern Turkey are the eastern portion of 
Mesopotamia and Ancient Assyria, the proper 
limits of which seem to have extended as far 
north as the Taurus Mountains, though, in 
their frequent contests with the Armenians on 
the north, the Assyrian monarchs not infre- 
quently passed over that barrier and overran 
Armenia, which is the northern division. On 
the eastern bank of the Tigris, to the north of 
Diarbekir, the Armenians still show the plain 
which they say was often the battle-field of 

38 





DIVISIONS. 



39 



their fathers against the invading Assyrians. 
When the invaders were able to pass the 
mountain range running south of the city, 
Hain£, the Armenians regarded their cause as 
lost until they should be able to muster new 
forces to expel the enemy. A few miles to the 
north-east from Hain£, where one branch of the 
Tigris rushes in its power from the base of a 
mountain, can still be read, cut deep upon its 
rocky face, the inscription, " This is the third 
time that I, Belshazzar, king of Assyria, have 
conquered this territory ; " to which, perhaps, 
we may add, " We too are now making its 
third conquest for Christ ; " since Armenian 
history declares that the nation has previously 
been converted twice to Christianity. A na- 
tional legend says that Abgar, one of their 
kings, who lived in the days when Christ was 
upon earth, having heard of his miracles, and 
being sick, sent messengers praying him to 
come and heal him ; and that Jesus returned 
to the king his likeness imprinted upon a hand- 
kerchief, saying, " This will heal him." Un- 
luckily, the story loses the handkerchief on the 



40 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



way, in consequence of the messengers being 
attacked by robbers and throwing it into a 
well ; but the result was that the king and his 
court and people were baptized by the apostle 
Thaddeus. Their second conversion, after re- 
lapsing into idolatry, was about a.d. 319, 
when Gregory, the " Illuminator," an Arme- 
nian of royal descent, having himself embraced 
the Christian faith, induced the king and his 
people to do the same. 

The limits of Armenia, like those of Assyria, 
have differed at different times, as the nation 
were able to overrun and annex adjacent terri- 
tory, or were themselves overcome ; and it is 
from this fact that different writers give con- 
flicting accounts of its area, which may be 
somewhat loosely defined as embracing the ter- 
ritory extending from 38° to 48° east longitude, 
and from 38° to 41° north latitude. The country 
is bounded on the north by the Black Sea and 
Georgia, on the east by the Caspian Sea and 
Persia, on the south by Mesopotamia* and an- 

* Armenia is now partitioned between Persia, Russia, and Turkey, 
the last having the largest portion. 



DIVISIONS. 



41 



cient Assyria, and on the west by Asia Mi- 
nor.* Within the one hundred and seventy 
thousand square miles embraced in the Mission 
to Eastern Turkey is found every variety of 
natural scenery, surface, soil, climate, and pro- 
ductions. Lofty ranges of sterile mountains, 
some of whose peaks are upwards of 13,000 feet 
in hight, and others of less imposing grandeur, 
are interspersed with fertile vales, extended 
plains, and rolling prairie. In many places, 
peaks which are covered with snow during 
half the year look down upon warm and fer- 
tile vales blooming with the verdure of early 
spring. The loftier of the two peaks of Ara- 
rat, in the north-east, where the territories of 
Persia, Russia, and Turkey touch its base 
upon the three sides, rises 17,323 feet above the 
sea, with a summit covered by perpetual ice and 

* A region of somewhat indefinite extent in eastern Turkey and 
western Persia, but included mostly within the territory watered by 
the Tigris and its eastern branches, the Great and the Little Zab, the 
Bedwan, the Batman, and others, and by the head waters of the 
Euphrates, is known as Koordistan, its territory being really not 
distinct from that of the other divisions mentioned, but mostly em- 
braced within the same limits, and taking its name from the Koords, 
who are a large part of the population. 



42 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



snow, lifted in naked grandeur 14,820 feet above 
the plain at its base. The valleys and plains are 
usually extremely fertile. The region has a 
great diversity of climate, from the intense heat 
of Mosul, where the mercury in summer fre- 
quently reaches 115° and even 120°, to that of 
Erzroom, which has a climate resembling that 
of central Maine. Metals are supposed to 
abound in the mountains, and copper and sil- 
ver are mined in limited quantities. Grains 
of various kinds, chiefly wheat and barley, are 
raised, with vegetables, the potato having been 
introduced in some parts by the missionaries. 
Cotton, tobacco, and many varieties of fruits 
are produced in some sections, including, in 
the vicinity of Harpoot, as well as some other 
parts, the greatest abundance of the most de- 
licious grapes, which, by their low price, often 
not more than half a cent a pound in summer, 
furnish not only cheap eating and drinking, 
but cheap drunkenness * too. Theorizers to 

* Being once pressed by my host in the city of Peri to say whether 
it was wrong to drink "a little wine," and replying, " I'll not say 
that it is -wrong," he added, "I only drink a very little," but in a 
few hours was "dead drunk," as were scores of others around him 
on that one Sabbath day of the year devoted to Bacchus. 



PRINCIPAL RACES. 43 

the contrary notwithstanding;, the wine-drink- 
ers of that country sometimes get very drunk, 
though it. must be confessed that their drunken- 
ness is less delirious, desperate, and murderous 
than that of their defenders and imitators on 
this side the water. 

The population of the country is, if possible, 
even more diversified than the natural scenery, 
each outcropping stratum of the blended mass 
of race, language, and religion — which are 
sometimes thrown together in inexplicable con- 
fusion — pointing back to some political up- 
heaving of a past age, or telling of some barba- 
rian avalanche from the East, whence so many 
conquering hordes have swept over this region 
toward the West, each one in its turn leaving 
some fragmentary memorial to increase and 
still more confuse the already existing accumu- 
lation. 

To speak at length of this confused mass of 
population, thus made up of the debris of suc- 
cessive centuries, from the days of Nimrod, the 
" mighty hunter " and conqueror, laying the 
foundations of Nineveh, down to the time when 

4 



44 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



the Turks conquered the country and fixed the 
population in substantially its present condi- 
tion, would fill volumes instead of pages. A 
glance at the principal races must therefore 
suffice. 

The plains of the south are chiefly in posses- 
sion of the Arabs, who, with their " hand 
against every man, and every man's hand 
against them," still vindicate their claim to be 
descendants of IshmaeL No traveler can safely 
pass through their territory unprotected by a 
hired guard from one of their tribes ; and 
even from the sultan himself they levy black- 
mail for the right of way. 

In different sections of the southern district, 
chiefly in the valley of the Tigris, are found 
the Yezidees, worshipers of the devil, an image 
of whom they are said to reverence in the form 
of a peacock. The logic by which they justify 
their choice of a divinity is substantially that 
used by their brethren in other lands, except 
that the latter are generally less consistent 
than they. " God is good," they say ; " he will 
not harm us, and therefore we need not trouble 



PRINCIPAL RACES. 



45 



ourselves about him ; but that other spirit " — 
whose name they are careful never to profane 
by uttering it — " needs to be propitiated." So 
they forget God, and yield themselves up to the 
control of their own hearts' lusts, as do thou- 
sands in Christian lands under another name 
and pretense, real Yezidees alL 

Of a third class of the population, the 
Koords, I can not speak better than in extracts 
from a letter upon them by Mr. Allen of Har- 
poot. " Of their history very little is known. 
It is said that they are of Persian origin, which 
seems quite probable. They are most numer- 
ous as we approach the borders of Persia ; some- 
what resemble the Persians in form and fea- 
tures; and, which is a still stronger proof, many 
words are common to the Persian and Koord- 
ish languages, so much so that one who under- 
stands the two dialects of the Koordish can, it 
is said, understand Persian. Thev do not live 
exclusively in Koordistan, but are scattered 
over a great part of Asiatic Turkey. The 
mountains are their chosen places of abode. 
They live in small villages in their mountain 



46 



TEN 



YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



fastnesses, and seldom, if ever, in the villages 
of the plains, or in the large cities. In this 
they take great pride, looking upon the city 
people as weak and effeminate. There are two 
principal branches of the race, the Koords 
proper, and the Kuzzlehashes (i.e., ' Red- 
heads'). Both are divided into many tribes, 
each having its own chief. The impression 
that they are all robbers is far from the truth. 
Many of them, indeed, make robbery their 
business, but the great majority live quietly in 
their mountain villages, pursuing lawful occu- 
pations. They are mostly farmers, cultivating 
the soil of their hillsides and mountain ravines 
to supply merely their own wants. They keep 
herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats. 
They make excellent cheese, and their butter 
would be good were it not churned in goat- 
skins, turned hair side in, so as to have too 
many hairs in it to suit a fastidious taste. 
They also have the dishonest practice of mix- 
ing flour with their butter to sell. Nearly all 
the cloth they use is of their own manufacture. 
They also weave carpets from the strong coarse 



PRINCIPAL RACES. 



47 



wool of their large-tailed sheep, which are very 
durable, lasting from generation to generation. 
The Koords are Mohammedans, at least in 
name, but a great part of them only in name. 
They have religious rites and ceremonies 
among them which as yet are little known, but 
seem to be a strange mixture of Christian, 
Mohammedan, and heathen rites. The Koords 
proper are the most faithful to the Mohamme- 
dan religion. The other branch, the Kuzzle- 
bashes, have more forms peculiar to them- 
selves. They generally try to conceal their 
real belief, from fear of the Turks. One 
strange doctrine among them is that the Holy 
Spirit dwells in one of their number. This 
person is called Dada, and is treated with 
great reverence, everything which he says be- 
ing regarded as inspired. Many, if not all, of 
the Kuzzlebashes are pantheists, and in preach- 
ing to them Christ crucified, we must not be 
too much encouraged by their receiving him as 
divine, since they also receive everything as 
divine ; Christ and Mohammed as well as 



48 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

other men, — animals, trees, and rocks, — all 
are God to them." 

The name of the Koords seems to have 
been derived from that of their ancestors, the 
Carduchi, through whose territory Xenophon 
led the retreat of the famous " Ten Thousand ; " 
and to a great degree they retain the bold, un- 
conquerable spirit of their fathers. Many of 
them are really fine specimens of physical 
manhood, but intellectually and morally they, 
as well as the Arabs and the Yezidees, are 
very far from God. 

In this category we may also include the 
Greeks, who are found in considerable num- 
bers, especially in the north, and along the 
coast of the Black Sea. " I distrust the Greeks 
even when they bring gifts," is as just now as 
in classic days, at least in its application to 
those of the race in Turkey. That Oriental 
trait of character which makes almost any 
man anxious to oblige you by thinking and 
talking as you do, and especially so when he 
can gain anything by it, has a more intense de- 
velopment among certain races ; and what Mr. 



PRINCIPAL RACES. 



49 



Barnes somewhere says of certain persons, that 
they are too dishonest to be saved, for they re- 
fuse to deal honestly even with their own souls, 
appears to be true of the races just mentioned. 
God's chosen time for bringing them in will 
doubtless come, — it may be near, — when by his 
own methods he will give to his gospel saving 
power among them. But we should beware of 
confiding too hastily in professions of attach- 
ment to the Christian faith which are prompted 
mainly, if not entirely, by political motives, by 
a wish to secure the sympathy and aid of Chris- 
tian governments against the Turks, or by the 
hope of personal or national advantage in any 
form. Of this character, it is to be feared, 
have been some, if not all, of those professed 
adhesions to the truth by Koords, and perhaps 
some others, which have excited high expecta- 
tions without leading to results equally encour- 
aging. As missionaries of the cross we need 
to be on our guard against designing hypocrites 
„ and cringing sycophants, — to be not only 
harmless as doves, but also wise as serpents. 
Of one remaining part of the population of 



50 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



the district, the Turks, little needs to be said, 
except, perhaps, to remove an impression 
which seems still to exist in some minds, that 
they are fanatically opposed to Christianity as 
such. They try to put down the rebellion of 
their Greek subjects in Crete, just as years ago 
they put down that of Mohammedan subjects 
in eastern Turkey, and as our own govern- 
ment put down that in the South ; but it is 
little if at all more just to say that the Turks 
are making war on the Christians of Crete 
than to say that our own government, or the 
Congregationalists of the North, made war on 
the anti-mission Baptists of the South, or any 
other sect prevailing there. Without entering 
at all into the question whether the Greek or 
the Turkish population of Crete should rule, or 
whether fanatical hate has been excited be- 
tween the different nationalities in the progress 
of the war, we should beware of inferring from 
the existence of the war that the Turks, and 
especially the Turkish government, hate Chris- 
tianity ; since such an idea once firmly fixed in 
the public mind might lead to political doctor- 



P1UNCIPAL RACES. 



51 



ing of " the sick man " anything but wise and 
healthful, because, having doctored him to 
death, the physicians might be unable to bury 
him. 

To say nothing of the question, which as a 
political one has no place here, whether any 
other race are yet prepared to supersede the 
Turks in governing the empire, it should not 
be forgotten that toleration of the preaching 
of a pure gospel, and the establishment of in- 
dependent churches, which has been denied 
by most European governments, and still is 
denied by Greece and Russia, whose govern- 
ments covet so large a share of the " sick 
man's" possessions, is freely accorded by the 
Turks. We at least in eastern Turkey owe 
it to truth and justice to say that the Turks 
and their government have helped rather than 
hindered our missionary work there. 

Indeed, very much of the popular talk about 
Mohammedan hatred of Christianity springs 
from a mistaken idea of the case. Mohamme- 
danism may with truth be said to have been a 
protest against idolatry, in favor of the worship 



52 



TEN YEARS OX THE EUPHRATES. 



of that God whom the self-styled prophet truth- 
fully declared to be " One, and a Spirit." 

In a mistaken way, indeed, and with selfish 
aims, he really preached over again the sermon 
of the apostle in the midst of Mars' Hill, that 
" we ought not to think that the Godhead is like 
unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art or 
man's device." When, then, the Turk, who still 
hears from the minaret the cry that God is one, 
and sees about him those whom, like all the 
merely nominal Christians of the land, he re- 
gards, and not unjustly, as breakers of the com- 
mand to worship God alone, abhors the so-called 
Christian as an idolater, he only does what we 
all do. That this is the fact, and that it is not 
Christianity as such which is so much disliked, 
but chiefly its corruptions, is seen from the 
changed feelings with which the Turks look 
upon the Christian system as illustrated by the 
proclamation of a pure Christianity, and the 
planting of evangelical churches, that remove 
from their places of worship the pictures and 
the relics of the saints, and put in their place 
the pure word of God. 



P lit NCI PAL PACES. 



53 



It is the highest praise which they are yet 
prepared to pay this pure system to say, as one 
of them recently did, " I like you Protestants. 
You are next door to us." It is an encour- 
aging fact that even in the darkest and most 
fanatical portions of the empire the Turks are 
buying and reading the Bible, as they are doing 
in eastern Turkey. 

The remaining portion of the population of 
this section of country might all be summarily 
embraced under the term nominal Christians,* 
of whom there are various sects. The chief of 
these are the Nestorians, a portion of whom 
adhere to the pope and are called Chaldeans, 
the Jacobites, the papal Syrians, one in race 
with the Jacobites, but adherents of the pope, 
and the Armenians, some of whom are also ad- 
herents of the pope. As the missionary labors 
of my associates and myself have been chiefly 
among the Armenians, a few lines will be de- 
voted to them. 

* There are in some sections a few Jews, who here, as everywhere 
else, retain their national physiognomy and character. They are very 
numerous in Bagdad, to the south of our missionary district, having 
remained there prohahly from the time of the Babylonish captivity. 



54 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



They claim to be one of the oldest nations of 
the earth, tracing their genealogy back to Haik, 
who was the great-grandson of Japheth, the 
son of Noah, and from whom to this day they 
are called, in their own language, Ilaik, or Hais. 
They think their language the same as that 
spoken by Noah, and the only one which was 
not changed by the confusion of tongues at 
Babel, and, of course, the language of Paradise. 
This claim is good, if at all, not for either of 
the dialects which they now use, but only for 
that ancient language in use in their churches, 
but which is unintelligible to the mass of the 
people. The name " Armenian" is derived 
from Aram, one of their kings, who distinguished 
himself in freeing his country from invaders. 
He was the seventh of the dynasty of Haik, 
which continued to sit on the throne for some 
eighteen centuries, being tributary a part of the 
time to Assyria, till the dynasty was overthrown 
by Alexander the Great, B. c. 325, and Arme^ 
nia was ruled for one hundred and thirty years by 
the Greeks, and then for some five hundred years 
was comparatively free, suffering much, how- 



PRINCIPAL RACES. 



55 



ever, from the struggles between the Romans 
and the Persians, who then conquered and divi- 
ded the territory. The Persians meanwhile 
strove, by cruel and bloody persecution, to 
eradicate the Christian faith, which, about a 
century before, had been received by Tiridates, 
their king, and his people, under the instruction 
of Gregory, the Illuminator, as before stated, 
about a. D. 319. Under the merciless Sapor, 
king of Persia, multitudes laid down their lives 
for the faith, and in Farkin, called also Martyro- 
polis, an ancient walled city of much strength 
and wealth, but now in ruins, some fifty miles 
north of east from Diarbekir, are still seen the 
massive and really beautiful ruins of a church, 
built, a century after Sapor's persecutions, by 
Marutha, an Armenian bishop, who collected 
and buried there the bones of many of the mar- 
tyrs.* 

The poor Armenians have now, for nearly fif- 
teen centuries, been trodden under foot in turn 
by Persians, Greeks, Koorcls, Russians, and 

* Since writing the above, I learn that the churches of the Harpoot 
Evangelical Union have located in Farkin two of the Koorclish- 
sp^aking missionaries spoken of in the last part of chapter ninth. 



56 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



Mohammedans, the last of whom, the Turks, now 
hold undisputed sway over the western part of 
the country, the remainder being in subjection 
to the Persians and the Russians. Though still 
found in greater numbers within the limits of 
their ancient country, the Armenians, like the 
Jews, are a nation " scattered and peeled," num- 
bers of them being found not only in all parts 
of Turkey, but also in central and southern 
Asia, in Egypt and the different parts of Europe, 
and here and there one in the United States, 
to which hundreds of thousands would gladly 
come, if able to reach this far-famed refuge of 
the oppressed. 

They are a very interesting people, naturally 
intelligent, enterprising, and ingenious, as is 
shown by the fact that in Turkey the most skill- 
ful and successful artisans and the chief mer- 
chants and bankers are from among them. But 
the one thing which raises them I may almost 
say infinitely above all the other races of the 
East, as hopeful subjects of missionary labor, is 
the fact, that, amid all their ignorance, super- 
stition, and degradation, which are especially 



PRINCIPAL RACES. 57 

great in the central and eastern portions of the 
country, and while addicted, like those about 
them., to most of the sins which are peculiarly 
oriental in their character, and pre-eminently to 
lying, still, buried beneath all the gathered rub- 
bish of centuries of oppression and sin, is found 
a conscience, which the first touch of divine 
truth is often sufficient to waken to new life and 
saving energy. To their credit, too, be it said 
that the standard of moral purity among them 
is immeasurably above that among the Turks 
and some other races, to whom may still be ap- 
plied the divine declaration that " it is a shame 
even to speak of those things which are done 
of them in secret." 

One specially encouraging fact is, that, during 
all these centuries of darkness and superstition, 
amid all their wide departures from truth and 
duty, they have retained an almost supersti- 
tious reverence for the Scriptures. 

As I have stood in their dark old churches, 
begrimed with the smoke and soot of centuries, 
from lamps kept burning even at midday, and 
seen the white-haired old priest reverently take 



58 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

from its recess a timeworn book all covered 
with silver crosses, and hold it forth from the 
altar for young and old devoutly to kiss, as for 
centuries past their fathers have done, though 
I knew that the contents were alike unintelligi- 
ble to him and them, and that the fixing of 
these crosses upon the sacred cover, in the hope 
of thereby saving infants that had died without 
baptism, was but another token of their own 
deep spiritual darkness, yet the fact, that, by 
that devout though ignorant act of reverence, 
the poor people were keeping alive in their 
hearts the feeling that that book has in it some- 
thing more than any and all other books, made 
me grateful to God that the memory of a liv- 
ing though departed ancestral faith in the Bible 
has thus been perpetuated even by this its 
dead and petrified ceremonial form. 

In this the Armenians differ widely from the 
other races about them. The Mohammedan 
accepts the Bible as God's book, but with this 
abatement, that it has been largely superseded 
by the Koran, and has besides been corrupted 
by the Christians ; the papist calls for the " ap- 



PRINCIPAL RACES. 



59 



proved edition," and that to be interpreted " as 
explained by the church ; " but once convince 
the Armenian — a thing not difficult to do — 
that the book which you offer him in his mod- 
ern and spoken tongue is in meaning the same 
as that which he learned to kiss at the altar, 
and he acknowledges the divine force of all 
which it teaches, and feels too that it is his 
personal right to read and interpret it. 

Another encouraging feature in the mission- 
ary work among the Armenians is the fact that 
they are thus dispersed among the other races 
of Turkey and adjacent countries, and that 
while the dissevered fragments of the nation 
still cherish to some degree a sentiment of na- 
tional unity, and are thus prepared to feel the 
influence of the vitalizing power of the gospel 
given to any portion of them, at the same time, 
by their dispersion, they are prepared to be 
most effective missionaries in bringing the other 
races to Christ. Their acquaintance with the 
various languages and dialects of the country 
is an advantage of no trifling importance, 
which no other race has. Those of them in Rus- 

5 



60 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



si an Armenia speak the Russian ; those in Per- 
sia, the Persian, or the corrupt Turkish in use in 
western Persia ; those in Koordistan, the Koor- 
dish in its two dialects, the Zaza and the Koor- 
mangie ; those in the Arabic-speaking portion 
of the empire, the Arabic, etc. ; while nearly all 
in northern and central and western Turkey 
know more or less Turkish, which, in some 
sections, they use to the exclusion of their own 
national tongue, the Armenian. In giving to 
them, then, a pure gospel, we are taking the 
shortest and surest way to give it to all the 
different races and tribes among whom they 
are scattered. 

To all this it must be acknowledged that 
there is one apparent drawback. As a nation, 
they appear to lack that stability of character 
and purpose which is needed to make them 
hold on their way in spite of all interposing 
difficulties. While they have proved themselves 
able to endure persecution, as even fickle men 
may do from that manly pluck which often, 
even in the absence of firm Christian principle, 
refuses to worship at another's dictation, yet 



HARPOOT MISSION-FIELD. 



61 



there is cause to fear that upon trial they may 
he found wanting in that other quality, nobler, 
or at least more difficult of acquisition, than 
even the martyr spirit, which leads its pos- 
sessor to go quietly, consistently, and persist- 
ently on in the way of daily duty, making all 
those efforts and sacrifices which, even in the 
absence of external opposition, are demanded 
in doing the missionary work. It should, how- 
ever, be said, that it remains yet to be proved 
that any of the oriental races have this quality 
to that degree in which the Anglo Saxons pos- 
sess it. 

A few words must now introduce- the reader 
to the Harpoot* mission-field, to which Rev. 0. 
P. Allen and myself were assigned, in June, 
1857, and followed, in 1859, by Rev. H. N. 
Barnum, and in which, with our wives and 
others, prominent among whom is Miss M. A. 
West, in the female seminary, we have labored 

* Harpoot is, by the usual route of travel, about seven hundred 
miles from Constantinople, from which we go by steamboat to Sam- 
soon, a port of the Black Sea, and then on horseback three hundred 
and twenty miles (about sixteen days' journey) through Amasia, To- 
cat, and Sivas. 



62 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



together till within a few months, and hope 
again to do so till the missionary work of the 
Board there is completed. Previous to our going 
there, Mr. Dunmore had spent two years in the 
city and vicinity, laboring with great success in 
gaining a knowledge of the country and peo- 
ple, and awakening attention to evangelical 
truth.* 

The field of labor at first committed to 
us, but now greatly enlarged, embraced a ter- 
ritory a little exceeding that of the State of 
Massachusetts, lying about the head waters 
of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, — the lat- 
ter being the Hiddekel of Gen. ii. 14. If 
not the area within which, as the people 
there say, the garden of Eden was, it is at least 
near enough to be the spot to which Adam and 
Eve were driven when expelled from the gar- 
den ; for, learned commentaries on imaginary 

* It will be remembered that the object in view is not to give a his- 
tory of the missionary work in eastern Turkey, nor even within the 
Harpoot field, but only to present some of the most striking facts 
and principles of that special work which has fallen to my associates 
and mvself. Messrs. Clark, Pollard, and Richardson labored for 
some years in the Arabkir field, which is now included in that of 
Harpoot. 



HARPOOT MISSION-FIELD. 



63 



wonderful geological upturniiigs to the con- 
trary, we may suppose that the rivers still 
found there are essentially the same as before 
the flood, and that rivers then as now " parted 
into heads " in the natural way, as we advance 
up stream and not down, and that, when the 
united stream of the Euphrates and Tigris does 
thus "part into four heads " of prominence, it 
fixes the location of the garden somewhere in 
those parts. 

The territory of Harpoot is, like most of the 
northern part of eastern Turkey, very broken 
in its character, two lofty ranges of mountains, 
the Taurus and the Anti-Taurus, extending 
across it from east to west. Standing upon the 
lofty hill upon which the city of Harpoot is 
built, and looking across the intervening val- 
leys on the south, with their scores of villages, 
to the distant range of the Taurus, and north- 
ward, over the broken country, across the eastern 
branch of the Euphrates, seen at the distance 
of twelve miles, to the still loftier range of the 
Anti-Taurus, while the distant horizon to the 
east and the west also is shut in by lofty moun- 



64 



TEN* YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES 



tains of various forms and hight, we have a 
panorama of surpassing beauty and grandeur. 
At certain seasons of the year, this extended 
area becomes a vast mosaic of intermingled 
sunshine and cloud and storm rapidly chasing 
each other from mountain-top to mountain-top, 
and across the interlying hills and valleys and 
plains. Within this territory, the Koords, who 
are about a third of the population, mostly in- 
habit the mountains, and the Turks and Arme- 
nians the more level country. The chief cities 
of the region are Harpoot, with perhaps * twen- 
ty-five thousand inhabitants, Choonkoosh six 
thousand, Chermook four thousand, Palu eight 
thousand,. Chemishgezek four thousand, Egin 
eight thousand, Egil five thousand, Geghi-Kas- 
sabah four thousand, Peri four thousand, Mal- 
atia forty thousand, Arabkir twenty thousand, 
Divrik ten thousand, and Bakur-Maden five 
thousand, and others ; but the great majority of 
the people live in villages varying in size from 
a population of one hundred to thirty-five hun- 

* " Perhaps " must be prefixed to statistics of population in Tur- 
key, where the census is practically unknown. 



HAItPOOT MISSION-FIELD. 



65 



dred. The number of these villages is very 
great, upwards of twelve hundred * having al- 
ready been located by the pocket-compass, and 
mapped by the missionaries of Diarbekir, Mar- 
din, and Harpoot, when on tours ; for be it re- 
membered that while the missionary's family 
must have a home, a retreat to which he may 
return to be refreshed and cheered when de- 
pressed and dispirited by the bodily and men- 
tal fatigues of outside missionary labor, yet he 
himself is confined to no one city or village, is 
the occupant of no one pulpit, is not a local 
preacher, but an apostolic explorer, to range 
over and map out the country, and direct oth- 
ers, whom he shall select and train for the 
work, where to do the labor of local preaching. 
It perhaps is unnecessary to add that this mis- 
sionary touring is all done on horseback, and 
that, while often wearied by this slow mode of 
locomotion, we are thankful that neither the 
railroad nor the steamboat, nor even common 
carnage roads, have entered in advance of the 
gospeL 

* The actual number in the districts belonging to these three cities 
probably exceeds twenty-five hundred. 



Co TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

VIEW OF HARPOOT. 

The accompanying sketch gives a view of the southern part 
of Harpoot city and the plain, and the Taurus Mountains, some 
twenty miles distant, as seen from the upper story of the mis- 
sion house given at the close of chapter eighth. It will be seen that 
the houses are all flat-roofed. At the time of making this sketch, 
men were busy adding a second story to the house on the opposite 
side of the street, which passes in front of the mission premises, 
and they are seen at their work. The walls of the houses are 
of three kinds. (1.) Of unhewn stone laid in mud, since, though 
limestone abounds, wood has to be brought some two days' 
journey on the backs of mules or donkeys, and is too costly to 
allow much to be used for burning lime. (2.) Of sundried 
bricks of mud mixed with straw, such as were made by the 
Israelites in Egypt. These walls are usually two and a half 
feet thick. (3.) A Avail six inches thick, made by erecting 
a framework of timber and filling the spaces with sundried 
brick. The mason in the picture is erecting such a wall, while 
the water-carrier is bringing a goatskin bottle full of water to 
make the heap of dirt, which lies upon the roof, into the needed 
mortar. The roofs are made by laying on rafters, which are 
covered with sticks or thin boards, and adding a foot or more 
of earth, which is rolled down hard. The veiled woman at 
the right is taking a walk upon the house-top, while her neigh- 
bor, near by, is taking his ease, sitting upon the big bedstead 
upon which himself and family spread their beds to sleep at 
night. 

The main southern road from the city — built largely by men 
taken from the state prison, and apparently from an impulse 



HARPOOT MISSION-FIELD. 



67 



given to road-building by the labor of the theological students 
mentioned on page 181 — is seen winding its way up the moun- 
tain-side through the Turkish cemetery, distinguished by its 
erect stones. Armenian gravestones are laid flat on the ground. 
The houses immediately in front of the mission premises are oc- 
cupied mostly by Armenians. 

The houses seen in the distance upon the cliff are inhabited by 
Turks, who always seek to arrogate to themselves the choicest 
locations. The remainder of the city lies to the east and north- 
east of the mission premises, which, fortunately, are in the out- 
skirts, enabling the missionaries to escape much of the noise and 
filth which afflict the dwellers in the midst of an oriental town. 
Our elevation upon the mountain affords an additional advan- 
tage. 

The clusters of trees seen here and there on the plain show 
the locations of a few of the many villages which dot that 
region. The trees are cultivated for timber by streams of water 
led from the mountains for the purpose. The village just at the 
left of the projecting hill which divides the plain about midway 
is Perchenj, and the one seen beyond in nearly the same direc- 
tion is Hooeli. 

In the mountains just to the left of the loftiest peak near the 
middle of that portion of the range seen in the sketch, raised 
far above the level of the plain below, is embosomed a beautiful 
lake, of about the same size as the Sea of Galilee, which it also 
resembles in the character of its surrounding scenery, as Mr. 
Barnum says, who has seen both. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE WORK TO BE DONE. 



The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took 
and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened. 
— Matt. xiii. 83. 



(^^HB question, "What is the missionary 
work? what object have Christian men 
i© and women in view in forming missionary 



societies and sustaining them by their con- 
tributions and prayers ? " is differently answered 
by different persons. There is doubtless at bot- 
tom a general feeling that it is for the temporal 
and eternal good of those sitting in darkness ; 
and yet comparatively few take the trouble to 
examine and decide how this object is to be at- 
tained. The little child sees the picture of the 
heathen mother casting, her babe to the croco- 
diles, or exposing it to beasts of prey, and 
brings her offering of pennies to teach that mo- 



68 



THE WORK TO BE DONE. 

s 



69 



ther to do so no more, and this, for the little 
child, is enough. But, for those who are to 
spend those pennies, it is fundamentally impor- 
tant that they have some more definite idea ; 
that they look beyond this work of mere out- 
ward reform to the higher spiritual aims of 
the missionary work ; since, if we fail here, if 
we merely persuade the cruel mother to desist 
from child-murder, and do not Christianize her 
and those about her, we may only rescue the 
body of her little one to destroy its soul. 

Probably all who take any efficient part in 
the missionary work assent to this idea, that 
the ultimate object aimed at is to Christianize 
those to whom missionaries are sent. And yet, 
upon the question what this implies, and how 
it is to be done, it is to be feared that some 
persons have very erroneous, and many others, 
very indefinite ideas. 

In entering the Harpoot field, my associates 
and myself discarded the popular notion that 
the missionary work is a vast system of alms- 
giving, or even of supporting gospel institu- 



70 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



tions among the unenlightened at the expense 
of Christians at home. Not thus do we find it 
defined anywhere in the gospel commission, 
nor in the practical illustrations of that com- 
mission in the first missionary work. The 
disciples at Jerusalem did indeed have all 
things common, but only, as it appears, during 
a temporary crisis, and then the most generous 
giver was Barnabas, from that foreign country, 
Cyprus. Paul and his companions gathered 
money from their converts in the foreign field 
for the poor saints in Jerusalem, but we have 
no evidence that any funds were sent in the 
contrary direction. Two things need to be re- 
membered by the missionary, at least in orien- 
tal lands. (1.) That he is in danger of over- 
rating the poverty of the people. To one fresh 
from the thrift, tidiness, and comfort of even 
the humblest homes here, the best of those 
in oriental lands appear poor and wretched 
enough. (2.) While Orientals are generally 
ready to make almost any professions to secure 
the good-will of those from whom they expect 
any temporal advantage, they, at the same time, 



THE WORK TO BE DONE. 



71 



look upon the advantage bestowed as a mere 
trap by which the giver hopes in the end to 
secure some gain to himself, and are thereby 
prejudiced against any instructions which he 
may give. Had the physician who dispensed 
medical advice and medicines gratis to the 
Moslem crowd, on condition that they would 
first listen to religious truth, but realized that 
those who crowded his dispensary congratu- 
lated themselves on their shrewdness in get- 
ting a real good in a harmless wrapper to be 
at once thrown away, he would have counted 
his patients with less satisfaction. When the 
kind-hearted missionary, instead of teaching 
his converts the grace of Christian liberality, 
and calling upon them from the first to give of 
their substance for Christ, practically treats 
them as paupers, not only giving them the gos- 
pel free, but adding, in one form and another, 
pecuniary help, and thereby increasing the uni- 
versal oriental greed for " bakshish," he not 
only harms the man, but inflicts a greater 
wrong on the church of which he is to be a 
member, by teaching it also to sit and beg. A 



72 



TEN YE Am ON THE EUPHRATES. 



church made up of such members, persons who 
have merely learned to adhere to the missionary , 
and sit from Sabbath to Sabbath and listen to 
a free gospel, with perhaps the added argu- 
ment of cheap bread from the missionary's 
hand during the week, can not be trusted. 
Says an earnest missionary, who has the mis- 
fortune to be located where such a church ex- 
ists, and who, as a beginning in the work of 
reform, is resolutely endeavoring to secure 
from the people one-half of their native preach- 
er's salary, in place of the whole, which, as he 
says, " they are able to pay," — " What course 
ought we to take ? Shall we ignore this 
church altogether, and labor on in hope of 
sometime having material to form a new church, 
and then ordain a pastor, or shall we now or- 
dain a pastor over what is little if anything 
more than a church in name ? We can, per- 
haps, get half of the salary from the people, 
though it will require a most desperate effort, 
and it seems sometimes that I can not stay here 
much longer. But I take a little courage when 
I remember the time when they thought they 



THE WORK TO BE DONE. 73 

could do nothing for themselves, and when a 
member of the church sent me a charge for 
putting up in their chapel a stove which had 
been presented to them ; and, when I refused 
to pay it, not only he, but others, accused me 
op defrauding him. Was wood needed for the 
chapel, it' was expected that the missionary 
would call some Protestant, apd say to him, 
' Here is the money for you to buy so many 
loads of wood, and pile it up in such a place 
and, as a matter of course, the man would 
afterwards come to the missionary for pay for 
doing his (the missionary's) work." To this 
the brother might have added, " And the mis- 
sionary was expected to be grateful to the peo- 
ple for coming to listen to his preaching." 
For members of another church, which had 
thus been fed and cared for at the expense of 
the Board, when the system was changed and 
they were called upon to do something for 
themselves, had the cool impudence to accuse 
the missionaries of ingratitude, and to ask, 
" What would you have done for an audience 
if we had not come to the chapel ? " 



74 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

But this mistaken sympathy, which puts con- 
verts in the place of paupers spiritually, if not 
pecuniarily, is, if possible, even more dis- 
astrous in its influence upon those who are em- 
ployed from among the people as helpers in 
the missionary work. The " poor men" get a 
salary altogether out of proportion to the earn- 
ings of those about them, and which the people 
are as wholly unable to pay as a poor country 
parish would be to support an expensive city 
preacher. And these helpers, once accustomed 
to the prompt and uncomplaining payment of 
so large salaries, and sure, like all of their 
class, to spend all they get, can seldom or never 
be induced to take less, or to depend upon the 
complaining charity of their own people. It 
should also be remembered that these high sal- 
aries are so much premium upon hypocrisy on 
the part of the ministry, and thus lay the 
foundations of the church in spiritual rotten- 
ness. 

The idea that the gospel must be made free 
of expense to its adherents on foreign mission- 
ary ground rests in part upon the mistaken no- 



THE WORK TO BE DONE. 



75 



tioD that the cost of supporting Christianity is 
greater than that of the false systems from 
which converts are made, and that somehow, 
also, adherence to the gospel system makes peo- 
ple poorer, — both of which are untrue. The 
cost of teachers of religion is usually in inverse 
proportion to the purity of the system taught, so 
that the ministry of Christianized, enlightened 
New England costs a far smaller proportion of 
the earnings of its adherents than does that of 
heathen countries. And shall it be said that 
that godliness, which, in lifting heathen or nomi- 
nally Christian nations from the condition of 
ignorance and degradation, gives them the 
promise of the life that now is, as well as of 
that which is to come, sinks them, in evident 
breach of its blessed promise, into a still deeper 
slough of wretchedness and dependence ! The 
material advantages which intelligence has over 
ignorance, industry over idleness, and virtue 
over vice, are each so many large sums to be 
placed on the creditor side in striking the bal- 
ance of advantage which true Christianity has 
over all false systems. Observation among the 



76 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



Protestants of the Harpoot field shows, that, to 
say nothing of time and strength lost in former 
carousals, the saving of money by abstinence 
from wine-drinking nearly or quite equals what 
they now pay for supporting gospel institutions. 
When once laboring to induce a close-fisted 
merchant in Harpoot to pay five dollars a year 
for the pastor, I offered him five times that sum 
for the gains which, as a Protestant, he made 
by his new custom of keeping his shop open on 
saints' days, and was refused. He well knew 
that the profits which he made by obeying God 
rather than man were worth more than that. 

Feeling, then, that, if we would make the 
gospel really a blessing to the people, if we 
would teach them to value it, we must offer it 
to them in its true character as God's message 
demanding sacrifice on their part, we put away 
all false shame, and false sympathy for their pov- 
erty, and, with the gospel, presented and urged 
the idea of paying for it. It was hard some- 
times to resist appeals from " poor " men that 
- we would give them a Bible, and yet we never 
gave one, and in the few cases in which we 



THE WORK TO BE DONE. 77 

gave a Testament we had afterwards occasion 
to regret doing it. The recipients did not 
value and read it. Tracts were by rule, in 
former days, to be given away, and the result 
was that nobody cared for them, till we gave 
out that we should hereafter only lend them, 
and then, at the people's request, began to sell, 
and sold thousands of copies. 

In carrying out the principle of thus putting 
the gospel upon independent ground, and de 
man ding that all those who profess to adhere to 
it should aid in supporting it, we had occasion 
to call upon the church which had unfortunate- 
ly, as we believe, been formed in Harpoot city, 
to select and begin to support a pastor. A man 
who had been educated in Bebek Seminary, at 
Constantinople, was there as their preacher., 
but neither was he willing to be their pastor 
and look to them for support, nor they to sup- 
port him. " You missionaries are good enough 
to preach to "us and give us the sacraments," 
they said, " and we don't need a pastor." 

To this we replied, " Yes, indeed, we are 
too good — at any rate, we cost the American 



78 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



churches too much — to stay here in this little 
city and preach for nothing to you, and thus 
do you harm. You must have preaching for 
which you can pay," To this purpose we ad- 
hered, going, subscription-paper in hand, from 
man to man, and calling on each one to prove 
the reality of his professed love for the gospel 
by paying for it. Any man who appeared in 
the chapel on the Sabbath for the third time 
was noted, and called upon by one of the mis- 
sionaries — for no one else would consent to do 
such work — with " I am glad to see, sir, that 
you like the gospel and its new preacher, Mar- 
diros, and I have called to see how much you 
love them." Some refused to give anything, 
and such generally disappeared from the chapel ; 
but those who put down their two cents, or one 
cent, or half a cent a week, began to feel at 
home there, and to look upon the preacher as 
belonging to them. 

The expected clamor, however, came against 
" those men who, instead of preaching the gospel, 
are collecting money from the people to which 
the only reply was a sermon with 1 Cor. ix. 1- 



THE WORK TO BE DONE. 79 

15, and 2 Cor. xi. 7-12, and xii. 13-15, for a 
text, and closing with the declaration of an 
unflinching purpose to imitate the apostle in try- 
ing to do them good by teaching them to love 
and support their preacher, though the more 
abundantly we thus showed our love to them, 
the less we should be loved. The public clamor 
ceased, and the effort to raise the one hundred 
and ten dollars needed went on, bringing forth 
its own incidental good fruit, in leading others 
to say, " We were mistaken. We supposed 
that people went to the Protestant chapel be- 
cause they were paid for going, but now they 
themselves pay." The whole missionary work 
came to be looked upon by the people in a dif- 
ferent light, and undoubtedly to the influence 
which that first struggle had upon both the 
professed adherents of the gospel and the peo- 
ple at large is, to a great extent, due the un- 
looked-for, the truly surprising success which 
has crowned missionary labors in that field. 
To the mean, niggardly rich man, who pro- 
fessed great love for the truth, but, when called 
upon for four dollars for the pastor, said, " I 



80 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

never paid more than sixty cents in the Arme- 
nian church j and shall pay no more here,' 5 we 
kindly said, " If you are seeking the cheapest 
religion, sir, you will not find it here. The 
Turks will pay you for turning Turk." The 
result was that he paid, and, having begun to 
hear the truth by the sacrifice of a darling sin, 
all the sooner felt its saving power, and became, 
as we hope, a Christian. When the church 
pleaded for one of its covetous members that 
we have patience with him, our reply was, 
" Yes, at your expense, but, if you expect us 
to wait, and pay his subscription too, you ask 
too much. Turn him out of the church, and 
we will pay it." They kept him in, paying his 
share themselves, and now, after ten years, the 
poor man gives no evidence of being a real 
Christian. Once inside the church, with his 
pet sin of covetousness still in his heart, no 
mere exhortations can induce him to cast it 
out. It needs church discipline to wake him 
up to a sense of his condition and duty, as 
no doubt it does to benefit and save some 



THE WORK TO BE DONE, 81 

" idolaters " in the church on this side of the 
ocean. 

I have spoken thus at length on this point, 
both because to us it appears to be a fundamen- 
tal one, and because some who have the reputa- 
tion of being friends of missions, if not of the 
American Board and its officers and missiona- 
ries, hold different views, and in various ways 
are doing much to hinder the efforts which are 
made to put the gospel upon its own merits, as 
not only worth to men all which it costs, but 
as worth more to those to whom it costs some 
pecuniary sacrifice. 

Those who talk of the " wrong of taking 
money from the poor people, which we are so 
much better able than they to pay," forget that 
it is taken for their good, and not ours, and that, 
under the Jewish dispensation, even the poorest 
were not excused from giving tithes for the 
service of the sanctuary. They forget that 
Jesus commended the poor woman who cast all 
her living into the Lord's treasury. They for- 
get too that word of the Lord J esus which Paul 
bade the Ephesian elders remember, that " it is 



82 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

more blessed to give than receive," and that, if 
we would see the members of the churches 
" complete in Him who is the head," complete 
in their graces and sources of Christian enjoy- 
ment, we must strive to implant in the begin- 
ning the germs of all those graces, including 
that of Christian liberality, the most difficult of 
all, and, if neglected at first, possible of devel- 
opment only to Him to whom all things are pos- 
sible. I have been a pastor in New England as 
well as a missionary, and tried both, and I would 
rather undertake to bring to Christ and to the 
completeness of Christian manhood a score of 
those to whom the story of the cross is new, 
than to teach one selfish, niggardly Christian, 
who thinks his title to heaven already sure, to 
put away his idolatry and selfishness and live 
for Christ. And with such an experience, added 
to the teachings of Scripture, warning me to lay 
well the foundations of the churches, I could 
never consent to plant churches to be cared for 
without effort and sacrifice on their part from 
the beginning. 

Again, in entering upon the missionary work, 



THE WORK TO BE DONE. 



83 



we remembered that the commission, which we 
suppose to be no less binding now than when 
first uttered, and no less sure in its blessed 
promise, says, " Go, preach the gospel to every 
creature," and " Lo, I am with you." It does 
not say, a Go, gather together some into schools, 
hoping that you can educate them into Chris- 
tianity, but for the older and confirmed sinners 
there is little hope." The command is plain, 
the promise equally so : Go, preach the gospel 
to all. Lo, Jam with you. The gospel is put 
first and foremost, and the promised power is 
from Christ's presence, giving efficiency to that. 
To say nothing of the position, which observa- 
tion and experience prove to be tenable, that 
the best way to secure the permanent establish- 
ment of schools among any people is to intro- 
duce them as a fruit of evangelization, and at 
the expense of the people themselves, rather 
than as a gratuitous agency for securing evan- 
gelization, it is a ruinous error^ sometimes prac- 
tically if not theoretically committed, to sup- 
pose that to save men we must give them 
schools and seminaries. 



84 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



But this error is all the more pernicious 
when, as in some cases, more effort seems to be 
made to get pupils into a missionary seminary 
with the hope of their conversion than to lead 
to Christ the perishing mass who can not thus 
be supported in order to save them. 

Those who thus make education introductory 
to the gospel, in their joy at getting a prospec- 
tive subject of conversion in hand are in dan- 
ger of forgetting God and his grace, and relying 
upon something else ; while, if the pupils are 
not really converted, they are by the very pro- 
cess of education confirmed in impenitency, and 
made more efficient for evil, by the power which 
knowledge gives them. But the evil is aggra- 
vated when, as in some cases, the influence of 
these schools, seminaries, and colleges, estab- 
lished among a people who are intellectually 
self-conceited, and, as among the Arab races, 
proud of their " unrivaled language," is to 
withdraw the thoughts of men still further from 
the simple gospel to the manner in which it is 
preached, — to cultivate among the people a fasti- 
dious taste in regard to the style of their preach- 



THE 



WORK TO BE DONE. 



85 



ers. Alas! when will men learn that the gos- 
pel of the Son of God no more needs an intro- 
duction now than it did in the days of the apos- 
tles, and that, in offering it to the perishing, it 
must itself be made the essential thing, the one 
center of thought and love and action ? When 
will all Christian missionaries learn that by giv- 
ing the simple message, " Behold the Lamb of 
God," in any sense a secondary place, and es- 
pecially by withdrawing attention from it to 
mere education, or, as in some cases, to the 
beauties of language, or, in the words of an- 
other, to the " mere fine clothes in which 
thought is dressed," sinners are sunk in a still 
surer and deeper destruction ? How many-fold 
aggravated the second death of those whose day 
of probation was thus lost upon things intro- 
ductory to the gospel, whose attention, in the 
hour of coming death, but of possible rescue, 
was thus turned away from the only remedy, to 
the gilded wrapper in which it was offered ! 

If any one thing more than any other in the 
gospel system has indicated its divine origin 
and power, in distinction from all mere hu- 



86 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

manly-devised schemes, it is the fact, that, in 
spite of human weaknesses on the part of its 
commissioned teachers, including that weak- 
ness of faith which has so often led them prac- 
tically to distrust its divine efficiency, and to 
offer it as a gratuitous, education-coated pill to 
men, it has hopefully saved so many. But, 
while a great work has been done in saving in- 
dividual souls, it is to be feared, that, by these 
false methods of presenting it, its power to bless 
communities by really christianizing them has 
too often been lost. Gospel institutions, sus- 
tained at foreign expense among a people who 
have not yet learned to love them by making 
sacrifices and efforts to secure them, appear- 
ances to the contrary notwithstanding, must be 
regarded as at least of doubtful benefit, if not 
a positive harm, to the mass of the people, 
since they are thereby educated into regarding 
Christianity as not worth supporting. 

But an error which underlies many others in 
the missionary work, which is at the root of 
most if not all of the mistaken methods of mis- 
sionary labor, lies in forgetting what the Sav- 



THE WORK TO BE DONE. 



87 



iour says of Christianity as leaven, and regard- 
ing and treating it, if I may say so, as itself a 
leavened loaf, or rather as a complete thanks- 
giving dinner, to be transported and set down 
bodily before the famishing crowds In heathen 
lands. Men take it for granted that whatever 
good things we enjoy, as a fruit of centuries of 
Christian culture, are, as a matter of course, 
adapted also to other nations, and are to be 
transferred to heathen soil ; or, in other words, 
that the entire system of education and civili- 
zation which the Bible has developed among us 
must go with it to the unenlightened. 

But, to say nothing of the differences of lan- 
guage, manners, customs, race, etc., as indicat- 
ing necessary differences in political and educa- 
tional systems, it should be remembered that 
many things which are highly beneficial and 
even necessary to us, because we have been 
educated up to them, and because, as a fruit 
of our national culture, they are peculiarly 
our own, may be not only unsuited to any 
other people, but, in their peculiar circum- 
stances, positively pernicious in their influence. 



88 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



The gospel is not a system, but a systematizer, 
and the more we treat it in its true character, 
and leave it to develop its own peculiar system, 
according to the circumstances and character 
of the people to whom it is given in its simple 
character as good news of salvation, the better 
will it fee. 

One of the first lessons which a missionary 
needs to learn, in beginning his labors among a 
people, is to distinguish between the essentials 
and the non-essentials of Christianity as he has 
been accustomed to it, to divest himself as far 
as possible of all mere prejudice, the result of 
early education, and to put himself into sym- 
pathy with his new surroundings, and decide 
what he is to do in order to christianize the 
community about him. 

And does the proposition need proof that the 
one essential thing to be accomplished by mis- 
sionary labor is to plant the Christian Church, 
and to set its members at work for Christ ? 
Unless we treat Christianity in its true charac- 
ter, as a leaven to be introduced and left to do 



THE WORK TO BE DONE. 89 

its own work, the world can never be brought 
to Christ. 

Men from America and England can never 
do all the Christian work necessary to the com- 
plete evangelization of the heathen world. The 
churches of Asia, Africa, and the islands of the 
sea, must, and can, and will do it, if we only es- 
tablish them with this end in view. 

And we shall do it if we take lessons of the 
primitive missionaries. Wherever Paul and 
his companions went, churches sprang into ex- 
istence ; churches, too, which were a power in 
the community about them ; churches whose 
prayers, example, contributions, and efforts 
were most efficient agencies in carrying on that 
most remarkable missionary work, which re- 
sulted in speedily bringing the then known 
world to the Christian faith. Says the apostle 
to the Thessalonians, " From you sounded out 
the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia 
and Achaia, but also in every place your faith 
to God-ward is spread abroad ; so that we need 
not to speak anything." 

Whatever else we may do, however many in- 



90 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



dividual souls we may save, our missionary 
work will be little, if any, better than a failure, 
if we fail to plant such churches. In saying 
this I do not mean that the gift of the Bible to 
the different nations in their own tongues is 
not desirable. This work may be well, nobly 
done, and much other incidental good be accom- 
plished. That Bible may be put into the hand 
of many persons, and a general knowledge of 
Christian duty be disseminated, which, if wisely 
directed to its proper ends, would result in still 
greater good. But in the failure to secure the 
great, the single ultimate aim of missionary ef- 
forts, the establishment of an independent, self- 
sustaining, self-propagating Christianity, these 
incidental benefits can no more be cited as evi- 
dence of success than could the roads made 
and the canals dug by our armies in the South- 
ern States be adduced as evidence of success, if 
those armies had failed to put down the rebel- 
lion. 

We may affirm, too, .as has been done, and 
truly, that " no earthly enterprise has such re- 
sults to show as this of missions, in accessions to 



THE WORK TO BE DONE. 



91 



the domain of knowledge, in great moral, social, 
and political changes ; " but, looked at in the 
light of the one great object, these great 
changes are but the canals and roads, the in- 
ternal improvements, made by the missionary 
army on the territory of the arch-rebel. This 
may be well done, but if the great, the only 
really essential work, — that of putting down the 
rebellion and locating upon the conquered ter- 
ritory efficient, because loyal, native armies of 
occupation, in the form of living churches, — be 
not also done, the help given to the devil, in the 
form of internal improvements on his territory, 
enabling him the better to hold it, more than 
counterbalances the mischief caused to his king- 
dom by the few occasional captures made from 
his subjects, especially if the captives are to be 
employed and paid as missionary helpers upon 
the soil by funds drawn from abroad. 

9 



CHAPTER IY 



PASTORS, SELF-SUPPORT, SELF-GOVERNMENT, — 
THE CHURCHES' THREEFOLD CORD. 

And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and 
had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on 
whom they believed. — Acts xiv. 23. 




HE apostles, then, the first Christian for- 
eign missionaries, completely organized ev- 
ery church which they formed. They gave 



to each from the first its own proper native 
officers. This is apparent not only in this in- 
stance, but appears elsewhere as a principle of 
missionary policy. Says Paul to Titus, " For 
this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou should- 
est set in order the things that are wanting, and 
ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed 
thee." Tit. i. 5. The' apostle could not rest 
till, with the other " things wanting " for the 
organization of the Cretan churches, that great- 




92 



PASTORS. 



93 



est want of all was supplied, a pastor to each 
one ; and he takes especial pains to instruct the 
young missionary how to do well the important 
duty of selecting and ordaining the proper per- 
sons. 

To Timothy also he gives special directions 
for the choice of bishops, showing that he too 
was expected to select men and set them apart 
to the office. The existence of a pastorless 
church is nowhere indicated or implied in the 
New-Testament history, but, on the contrary, the 
implication is clear that each church had, from 
the date of its formation, a bishop of its own. 
The action of the apostle Paul, at least, is plain ; 
and if any one thing more than any other, next 
to his all-consuming love for Christ and zeal for 
his cause, gave him his unrivaled success as a 
missionary, it was his effort to secure native la- 
borers and put them into the work. It seems at 
times as if he regarded it as beneath him to do 
the work of the local ministry. " Christ sent 
me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel," said 
he to the Corinthians. And when we recall the 
laro;e number of those thrust into the ministry 



94 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



who are only incidentally mentioned, we can 
infer something of his wonderful success in 
raising up a native ministry in the countries 
in which he labored. Every man, fitted for the 
office, who came into contact with him, from 
his medical traveling-companion, Luke, down 
to his hired servant, Mark, was transformed 
into a helper in the missionary work, probably 
quite as much by his own purpose and magnetic 
force of character, as by the divine call revealed 
through him. 

u Here, then," said we in entering the mis- 
sionary field, " is an agency no less available 
now than then in doing the same work ; " and 
accordingly, right or wrong, in the first letter 
to Boston it was laid down as a fundamental 
principle of missionary policy, and one from 
which we have not in any case departed, to 

" ORDAIN ELDERS IN EVERY CHURCH." To the lit- 
tle church already formed in Harpoot, in spite 
of difficulties many-fold increased by the fact 
of its formation upon a different basis, we gave 
a pastor, and succeeded at length in imbuing 
them with the feeling which churches organized 



PASTORS. 



95 



on the apostolic, or rather on the divine plan, 
have had from the first : namely, that they are 
a church of Christ, and as such have something 
to do for him, and not a mere company enlisted 
in the service of foreigners. That effort cost 
so much that not till the autumn of 1864 did 
we dare to form another church. A little more 
than seven years did we, gospel trumpet and 
subscription-paper in hand, compass the Jericho 
of oriental inertia and covetousness, before 
enough of the wall fell down to embolden us to 
enter and attempt to put a pastor over a church 
of our own forming. 

Had not the apostolic example induced us to 
adhere to this method, we should have adopted 
it from other considerations. When Missionary 
Boards are vainly calling for the few scores of 
men needed for the proper missionary work of 
planting churches, it were folly to suppose that 
hundreds can be found to act as pastors to little 
groups of converted heathen ; and worse than 
folly to belittle the popular idea of the mission- 
ary work, and leave the heathen to perish, by 
using the existing force of laborers for work 



96 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

which can be so much better done, and at far 
less expense, by pastors chosen from among the 
people themselves ; for, by manners and cus- 
toms, by early education, by modes of thought 
and feeling, — in a word, by all which separates 
man from his fellow, — missionaries are too far 
separated from those to whom they go to be 
able to have that practical, effectual sympathy 
with them, without which the pastoral relation 
can no more exist than can the matrimonial. 

Then, too, if found, and fit for the office, how 
shall the missionary pastors be supported ? Un- 
less the missionary with his family adopt the 
style of living prevalent among the people, and 
like them cut himself off from that intercourse 
with the home-land which is so expensive (a 
more hopeful way of sinking himself and family 
to the people's level than of raising them to 
his), or unless, as in some cases has been done, 
he gather into one unwieldy church the mate- 
rial of several, and thus disable himself from 
doing its pastoral labor, his support will be a 
burden too great for them to bear. If, on the 
other hand, he gets his support from the home 



SELF-SUPPORT. 



97 



churches, he wrongs his church by making 
them pensioners on the bounty of others, while, 
at the same time, he misappropriates funds 
given for missionary purposes. 

But another and greater wrong is inflicted oil 
the newly-formed churches by depriving them 
of doing and enjoying that most blessed duty 
and privilege of furnishing their own ministry. 
It is not too much to say that no church can 
live, deprived of the power or the opportunity to 
perform this its last and noblest function, of 
bringing forth this its richest fruit, in a living 
ministry for themselves and others. Certain 
it is that, in the absence of this " seed in it- 
self," it can have no power of self-perpetua- 
tion. 

Another principle adopted, and one which we 
regard as essential to the effective carrying out 
of the preceding, was to leave each church to 
choose and call its own pastor, making its own 
pecuniary and other arrangements with him, 
and assuming from the first the entire respon- 
sibility for his support. Each little community 
of hopeful Christians, previous to their organ- 



98 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

ization as a church, fix their eye on some mem- 
ber of the theological seminary, become ac- 
quainted with him, and when, after his gradua- 
tion, they and he agree, are organized as a 
church, and enter into the relation of pastor 
and people. No argument surely is needed to 
prove that this is the only way to secure per- 
manence in that relation. If we chose or sup- 
ported the pastors, the people would not and 
could not look upon them as belonging to them- 
selves, and, as a result, pastors would be little if 
anything more than hired preachers. As it is, 
the relation is usually one of much mutual 
affection, and promises to be permanent ; and by 
this course both people and pastors are educated 
to act for themselves. 

A translation of a " call " from one of these 
little communities to their proposed pastor may 
not be uninteresting. It was made by the peo- 
ple of Perchenj, a village six miles south from 
Harpoot, to a young graduate of the theological 
seminary, who was at the time preaching to 
another people, who, as a penalty for careless- 



SELF-SUPPORT. 



99 



ness in providing for his support, were con- 
demned to lose him. 

" To Baron * Bedros Apkarian, Evangelical 
Preacher at Maden. 

" Beloved Brother in the Lord : We, the 
undersigned, believing that your ordination as 
our pastor will be for the glory of God and the 
advancement of his kingdom, in this and neigh- 
boring f villages, therefore entreat you to as- 
sume this office. When you have done so we 
promise, (1.) That we will furnish you a suit- 
able house to live in. (2.) We will pay you 
regularly every month two hundred piasters, | 
and more when it shall be necessary. (3.) We 
will live with you in love and sympathy, honor- 
ing and caring for you as our spiritual 
shepherd. Praying that the blessing of God 
may be poured abundantly upon you and us, 

* Equivalent to the English " Mr." 

t The use of this word was not a mere form, as they organized the 
first home missionary society, one which has done and is doing much 
good. 

t The value of the piaster varies, but usually differs very little 
from four cents. 



100 TBN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



and that your stay among us may be profitable 
for the salvation of the dwellers in this village 
and others about it, 

" We remain, 

" Yours in Christ Jesus." 

To this were affixed the names of " Pilgrim * 
Marsoop," — all who have visited Jerusalem 
bear this title, — "Pilgrim Jacob," "Brother 
Adam,"and twenty-five others, with their seals, 
those who have no seals supplying its place by 
dipping the end of a finger in ink and imprint- 
ing it upon the paper. Then follow the names 
of these twenty-eight principal men, and twenty- 
nine others, some of them children, with sub- 
scriptions varying from twenty cents to one- 
fourth of a cent a month, to make up the 
promised salary. 

Before giving this call, the people had been 
divided into two parties, one party contending 
for a man named Toma Darakjian, and there 
had been danger of a quarrel. They met to 

* All those Turks, also, who have visited Mecca are afterwards 
called Haji, i. e. Pilgrim. 



SELF-SUPPORT. 



101 



decide the case, each party accusing the other 
of willfulness, and each replying, " We wish 
only to know and do God's will." So, looking to 
apostolic example, they referred the case to 
God for decision. Writing in one place 
u Toma," and in another " Bedros," and upon 
one piece of paper " Man's choice," and on 
another " God's choice," they rolled up and 
shook up the bits of paper, and, having united 
in praying, " Thou, Lord, who knowest the 
hearts of all men, show whether of those two 
thou hast chosen," laid one piece by Toma's 
name and the other by that of Bedros. On 
unrolling them, " God's choice " fell to Bedros, 
and all joyfully united in sending the call to 
him. 

It will be seen that the cost of supporting 
a native pastor is far less than that of a mis- 
sionary must be ; the usual salary of a village 
pastor being about one hundred and six dollars 
in coin, and that of the pastor in Harpoot city 
about two hundred and twenty dollars. While 
the churches assume the entire " responsibility" 
of their pastors' salaries, temporary aid is grant- 



102 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES, 



ed to needy churches, in no case exceeding one- 
half of the amount. This is promised only for 
one year, and, if continued, is diminished at 
least one-fifth each successive year, till at the 
end of five years it ceases entirely. The 
churches are thus made to feel from the first 
that the entire responsibility rests on them, and 
not at all on us. 

A third principle is, that in assuming this 
responsibility, or, in other words, by the act of 
their organization, the churches are indepen- 
dent of missionary control, having the same re- 
lations and duties to Christ and each other as 
churches at home have. They and their pas- 
tors are made to understand that they are in 
no sense subject to us, nor to any man, but only 
to Christ. This, of course, applied at first only 
to the individual churches. The pastors had 
from the first the same rights and duties as those 
at home, just as if no missionaries had been on 
the ground. They presided in church-meetings, 
administered the sacraments, and, with their 
churches, managed all their own internal af- 
fairs, receiving members and regulating church- 



SELF-GOVERNMENT. 



103 



discipline as they saw fit. From this it natur- 
ally follows, that, when the number of churches 
became large enough to form an ecclesiastical 
body of their own, it would be their right and 
duty so to do, and to manage all their own ec- 
clesiastical affairs. This logical result of the 
idea that a Christian church is, under Christ, to 
control its own affairs, entering into such rela- 
tions with sister churches as it chooses, we fear- 
lessly accepted, without any attempt to retain 
for ourselves any other than that moral influ- 
ence, which, as missionaries, we are quite sure 
to have with our spiritual children, or at least 
more likely to have by manifesting confidence 
in them as followers of Christ than by distrust- 
fully trying to retain the ecclesiastical reins in 
our own hands. 

Of the results of this course of action I shall 
hereafter speak, but may here say that so far 
they justify the wisdom of the opinion then 
formed, that the best way to manage missionary 
churches is that which the first foreign Chris- 
tian missionaries adopted, of whom it is said, 
that, having " prayed with fasting, they com- 



104 



TEN YEA IIS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



mended them to the Lord, on whom they be- 
lieved." It is natural to have a nervous fear 
lest, by leaving other hands than our own to 
drive the cart on which the ark of the Lord is 
borne, disaster should come upon it, but this 
fear is often caused by undue anxiety about 
small matters. 

When the pastor of the Harpoot church first 
entered upon his duties, a ministerial brother 
from abroad was quite agitated by some trifling 
breach on his part of our communion etiquette, 
and anxiously inquired whether we still pur- 
posed to leave such matters to him, expressing 
fear lest, by leaving too much responsibility 
upon the new pastor, we should bring disaster 
upon the church and the cause. " Did he not 
give the bread ?" we asked. * u Yes," he re- 
plied. " Did he give the cup ? " " He did." 
" Did he do it in remembrance of Christ?" 
" Yes." " Well, those are the only essential 
things." And, from that day to this, he, and, 
after him, other pastors, have given the bread 
and the wine in the name of Christ ; and if thev 
have at times failed to use a stereotyped form, 



SELF- GOVERNMENT. 



105 



our minds have been so engrossed in the sub- 
stance, or we have become so orientalized, as 
not to be annoyed by it. And, better still, they 
have succeeded in managing the more weighty 
affairs of the churches more successfully, I be- 
lieve, than we missionaries could have done, or 
at least better than some missionaries who have 
tried it have succeeded in managing their 
churches. 

If we wish the native preachers to feel and 
act like men, we must trust and treat them as 
such, and not as children ; or rather we must 
trust the Master, whose servants they and we 
are. 

But it is not so much mere externals, as the 
weightier matters of faith and practice, about 
which we should be solicitous in putting men 
into the ministry. Here, too, we must be fear- 
less, using our own careful judgment in select- 
ing and training the men, and prayerfully trust- 
ing God for the rest. By no amount of timid 
hesitation and delay shall we be able to avoid 
all mistakes. Offenses must needs come. Some 
of those set apart by the inspired apostle to the 



106 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES, 



Gentiles proved unworthy, and he expected they 
would. He assured the Ephesian elders that 
from among themselves should men arise speak- 
ing perverse things to draw away disciples after 
them ; and when he left Titus to ordain elders 
in every city of the " slow-bellied, lying Cre- 
tans," he doubtless expected that some of the 
" evil beasts" would be put into offices of which 
they were unworthy, but he nevertheless went 
on. If ever there was a case calling for delay 
and extra caution, one in which either no 
churches should have been formed, or the mis- 
sionary should have put his own hand to the 
work of guiding them, this of such a people as 
the Cretans was one ; and yet Paul's policy was, 
" Rebuke them sharply, but go on with the 
work of forming churches and ordaining pas- 
tors, and leave the result to the God of mis- 
sions : " and why may not we safely and profit- 
ably do the same ? 

If not, if we are timidly to keep the churches 
on missionary ground, and their preachers in 
leading-strings, the sooner we take consistent 
ground and declare ourselves their spiritual 



THE CHURCHES' THREEFOLD CORD. 107 

rulers, the better, and proceed to ordain an infe- 
rior clergy, whose natural position will be that 
now held by so many of the native ministry on 
missionary ground. 

Let no one suppose that it was easy for us 
to take and hold our position in Harpoot. It is 
one of the misfortunes of missionary labor that 
it almost inevitably impresses the people with 
the idea that those who send missionaries to 
them have a great amount of wealth, for which 
they care little except to find some easy way of 
spending it. If not, why should we use so largo 
sums for purposes which bring in no gain ? 
While, then, the inevitable impression that the 
missionary is rich gives him greater influence 
among the people, and thus enables him to do 
more good, his money at the same time excites 
their greed, and, unless he use great shrewdness 
in money matters, taking care to aid the churches 
no more than is absolutely necessary, he will 
cultivate among them a habit of reliance on 
foreign aid fatal to real independence. We 
ourselves erred at first in under-estimating the 
ability of the Harpoot people ; but our funda- 

8 



108 TEN YE AllS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



mental ideas of missionary policy soon corrected 
this, and brought them up to a higher standard 
of giving. 

By holding fast to the idea that the inde- 
pendence of the churches is inseparable from 
self-support, and then making every possible 
appeal to their manhood and their Christian 
feeling, we at length succeeded in gaining for 
the idea a permanent lodgment, as we hope, 
in the minds of both people and pastors ; but no 
one, who has not done the difficult work, can 
realize at what expense of effort and nervous 
energy it was accomplished. It required line 
upon line, and precept upon precept, repeated 
sometimes till the brain and the tongue wearied 
with the tiresome repetition. Sometimes we 
labored privately with them which were of rep- 
utation, urging them, as Paul did the Corin- 
thians (2 Cor. ix. 1-4), so to behave as to jus- 
tify our good opinion of them ; and, again, we 
rebuked before all some niggardly giver. When 
sometimes we dwelt too much, as the people 
thought, on remembering the words of the 
Lord Jesus, how he said, u It is more blessed 



THE CHURCHES' THREEFOLD CORD. 109 

to give than to receive," we replied, " Seek 
and enjoy this blessing, that we may stop talk- 
ing to you about it." When once asked 
whether it was not a shame to talk on such a 
subject from the pulpit, we replied, " Yes, it is 
a shame to you that by your covetousness you 
make it necessary." While we paid a part of 
the salary of the Harpoot city pastor, we were 
accustomed to occupy the pulpit during the 
same proportion of the time, leaving him to 
preach elsewhere. When once, in a pet at our 
faithfulness, the people sent a committee to re- 
quest that their pastor should preach all the 
time, we replied, " If you wish to hear your pas- 
tor you must make him yours by supporting 
him, and when you do this we mean that you 
shall hear him ; " * and, true to our intention, we 
left the pulpit to him from the time that the 
church began to pay his entire salary, — from 
January, 1866. 

That one church cost far more effort to make 
it independent than did the next three, formed 

* Should any one ask, " Was not this infringing on the right of the 
church to control its own pulpit ? " I reply, " No ; for that place of 
worship was ours, not theirs." 



110 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

in 1864 and 1865 ; but we were working on pa- 
tiently, encouraged by the hope of having no 
other such church to care for and bring up to 
its duty, when, in 1865, by the addition of 
neighboring territory to our mission-field, five 
other dependent, pastoiiess churches, a sixth, 
with a pastor supported by the Board, and a 
seventh, which half supported its pastor, were 
thrown upon our hands. It was as if an army 
almost exhausted in a conflict should see a host 
of fresh foes coming to snatch away the victory. 
The story of these seven churches can not be 
told here. Suffice it to say that we took bolder, 
higher ground with them than we had ventured 
to take with the Harpoot church. With " Christ 
sent us not to baptize, but to preach the gos- 
pel," as our guide, and aided by the noble little 
band of young pastors from our own proper 
field, we went to work, refusing to recognize 
as a church * any company of professed be- 

* That is, we declined to administer the sacraments to them. The 
church in Malatia, thus left without communion and baptism, ap- 
pealed to us to send a pastor from some other church, to which we 
replied, "The pastors are not our servants ; ask one yourselves." 
At their request, the Hulakegh pastor went and gave them the com- 



THE CHURCHES' THREEFOLD CORD. Ill 



lievers who should not wake up and go to 
work for the Master; and, in a brief time, 
three of the five pastorless churches had pas- 
tors, paying half or more of their salaries, a 
fourth pays two-fifths of its preacher's salary, 
and will soon have him for pastor, while a fifth 
is practically dead ; the church with the Board's 
pastor made him theirs by supporting him, and 
the one which had paid one-half of the expense 
of its pastor and schools now pays all. With 
one community, the one least willing to pay, 
and whose wrath was kindled against the new- 
comers, with our new gospel of " Give, give," 
we labored in vain, till, by comparing them to 
a healthy, strong man, who should lie down by 
the roadside to beg, crying out, 44 Help a poor 
cripple ! " and saying to them, " We are the 
men, who, instead of wronging by feeding you, 
have come in love, with the rod of God in 
our hands, to smite you, and say, " Get up, 

munion. A few days after, they came, saying, " Is it not a shame for 
us of the big city of Malatia to beg the sacraments from a poor village 
church?" To which we replied, ''It is no shame to beg when per- 
sons are too poor to do otherwise." " We are not too poor," they 
replied, and within a month they had a pastor. 



112 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



you pretended cripples, and prove by walking 
that you have feet ! " we at first relaxed their 
sullen faces in mirth, and then gave them forty 
dollars to aid in supporting the pastor of their 
choice. 

Let no one from these incidents infer that 
ours was merely a gospel of independence and 
self-support. That sort of preaching would 
not convert men ; and, to secure churches to 
be independent by self-support, two other 
things are necessary : converts, persons who 
truly love the Lord Jesus, to become members 
of those churches, and properly trained pas- 
tors and pastors' wives to be leaders in them. 

To securing these by the faithful use of the 
divinely - appointed instrumentality, and to 
training chosen men and women to feed the 
flocks over which the Holy Ghost should make 
them overseers, our strength has been given. 



CHAPTER V 



THE TRUTH READ. 

Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, 
and they are they which testify of me. — John v. 39. 

IBLE truth is the instrument to use for 
converting men. I have already alluded 
to the fact that the Armenians have the 
Scriptures in their ancient language, for 
which, though unintelligible to them, the people 
have a superstitous reverence, and that Dr. 
Riggs has given them a translation of it in their 
spoken language. The first thing to do, then, 
in entering upon the missionary work among 
the Armenians, is to convince them that the 
new volume which we bring is really the same 
in meaning with that which they and their 
fathers have venerated for more than fourteen 
centuries, and then to teach them to read it. 
The first is, happily, very easily clone, indeed has 

113 





114 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

been done, and the majority acknowledge that 
the u Protestant Bible," as it is called, is sub- 
stantially one with their own ancient volume. 

But, unhappily, in the Harpoot field the great 
mass of the people were sunk in the deepest 
ignorance. The Turkish officials aside, proba- 
bly not one in a hundred could read. Multi- 
tudes even of the Armenian priests, taught only 
to mumble the prayers and forms of the church 
in the ancient tongue, were unable to read the 
modern Bible intelligently. Our first effort, 
then, was to rouse all whom w r e met to a sense 
of the importance of learning this art, and of 
possessing a Bible. Much on the same princi- 
ple as posters are put in public places, we en- 
deavored to attract the public attention by ask- 
ing every man we met, " Do you know how to 
read ? " It was sometimes amusing to witness 
the wonder and incredulity with which our as- 
sertion was received, that an adult man, and 
even a woman, can learn to do this. Then too 
the idea of doing it, even if possible, was to 
some ludicrous enough. " What ! Am I to 
become a priest," exclaimed many a man, 



THE TRUTH HEAD. 



115 



" that I should learn to read! " But when, at 
length, a few here and there were persuaded to 
break over the feeling that priests only should 
read, and especially when others heard the new 
learners read of the wonderful things of God 
from the newly-purchased book, the popular 
feeling changed, and now a man is rarely to be 
found, who has come in contact with missiona- 
ries or with native helpers, who does not at the 
least acknowledge that it is a good thing for 
every one, including even women, to learn to 
read ; and that, though but a few years ago 
this was regarded as sufficient to unsex a wo- 
man. 

Sometimes, in their new-born zeal to have 
their wives learn, the men use peculiarily orien- 
tal ways of bringing it about. Finding in the 
city of Palu, on the Euphrates, some forty 
miles east from Harpoot, twelve men at our 
place of worship, but no woman, I inquired, 
" Where are your wives ? " To this they re- 
plied, and with truth, " They are very bitter 
against this place. They will not come." At 
the same time, they confessed that they had 



116 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



made no effort either to bring them there or to 
induce them to learn to read. 

Quoting to them, " If any provide not for his 
own, and specially for those of his own house, 
he hath denied the faith and is worse than an 
infidel," and adding, u So you see that you, in- 
stead of becoming better by coming here, are 
worse than the infidel Turks about you," I went 
on my way. Visiting the city a few weeks later, 
what was my surprise to find all the women 
present, each with a primer in hand ! Asking 
how this strange event had come to pass, I re- 
ceived the reply, " You told us that it was our 
duty to bring our wives in, and as they wouldn't 
come, we whipped them and made them come." 
Whether the women were whipped or not, one 
thing is sure : having got a good start in the 
beginning, in the way of Christian knowledge, 
they have to this day kept in advance of the wo- 
men in other places. They study their Bibles 
and catechisms, and write, and some of them 
cipher. Five of them have opened in their own 
houses free schools, to which they receive their 
neighbors' girls, and give them daily lessons, in 



THE TRUTH READ. 117 

t 

the intervals of housework. Several of them 
have become Christians, and of the twelve pro- 
posed members of the church to be planted 
there, they are the most zealous in the service 
of Christ. 

Having by various methods thus awakened a 
popular feeling in favor of education, it remains 
for us to provide the means to gratify it. 

One means has been already indicated. The 
Palu women gathering and teaching girls are 
but carrying out a principle of action which 
we try to impress on all, namely, that, having 
themselves found the fountain, it is their duty 
to guide others to it, — to teach others also to 
read. Many learn in this way. A second 
method is to send " little teachers," as they 
are called, little boys from the schools, who go 
from house to house and shop to shop, teach- 
ing adults to read, and receiving from us, 
when paid at all, about one-fourth of a cent 
for each daily lesson of twenty minutes. 

As a third means, we use schools, which are, 
however, supported by us only long enough to 
teach the first-comers to read, and to give them 



118 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



a taste of the sweets of a knowledge of the 
Bible. The popular tide being thus partially 
turned in the right direction, we either wholly 
or in part withdraw our support from the 
school, and throw its expense on the people. 
In exceptional cases of giving aid for a longer 
time, it is done as an encouragement to a church 
to support their pastor, and at the same time 
relieve him of the labor of teaching, — in 
which some engage without compensation, — 
and leave him free to do more pastoral and 
missionary labor. Thus we have a standing 
rule allowing us to pay for any village church 
half of the salary of a teacher five months of 
the year, his salary not exceeding three dollars 
per month. During the twelve years of mis- 
sionary labor in Harpoot, previous to 1867, the 
sum of $3,501 * was expended for common 

* The following are the items of expenditure by the Board for all 

objects in the station and out-stations during the same time. 
Theological Seminar}?-, seven years, .... $7,470 

Female Seminary, four " 2,140 

Aid in chapel building, 4,892 

Common schools, 3,501 

Salaries of helpers, rent, and aid to churches, &c , 28,106 

Salaries of missionaries, 17,0 32 

$62,641 



THE TRUTH READ. 119 

schools in the city and its out-stations. It will, 
of course, be understood that every preacher 
or helper in any form is ever ready to teach the 
people, young and old, to read the Bible. In- 
deed, the great labor of a helper on entering a 
new village is to urge the people to buy a 
primer and a Bible and learn to read them, he 
himself teaching them. 

As I do not propose to speak further of this 
department, I here group the chief items of 
interest relating to it. 

During the winter of 1866-67, in the city of 
Harpoot and the fifty-four out-stations under 
our care, 1,129 boys, 573 girls, and 88 3 adults, 
men and women, making a total of 2,587 per- 
sons, were under instruction in the different 
ways above specified. 

But our efforts, and those of the Protestant 
churches and communities, have likewise 
awakened the public spirit of the remaining 
Armenians, and the fears of their ecclesiastics, 
lest we get away all their adherents, so they too 
open schools, and in other ways teach the peo- 
ple. As nearly as I could ascertain, in the 



120 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



fifty-five cities and villages spoken of above, 
there were under instruction among them, dur- 
ing the winter of 1866-67, a total of 4,980 per- 
sons, made up of 3,764 boys, 609 girls, and 
607 adults. Most of the schools sustained by 
the Armenians may fairly be put to missionary 
credit, since, to say nothing of the fact that 
their opening schools at all is owing to mission- 
ary influence, the great majority of them are 
now kept open merely in opposition to Protes- 
tant schools, and would be closed if these were 
to cease. Thousands, probably tens of thou- 
sands, have thus learned to read, and attention 
has been given to writing and other branches, 
where but a few years ago popular education 
was unknown ; and our hope is that the result 
will be to lead the entire population to feel the 
importance of education, and to use the means 
to secure it. 

But it must be borne in mind that the end 
aimed at is not popular education, — which, as 
we feel, would do harm rather than good, if 
in advance of the planting of living churches, 
— but to put the Bible into the hands of the 



THE TRUTH READ. 121 

i 

people, and induce them to study and obey it. 
This is uniformly done by sale, since to give an 
Oriental a book would lead him to value it 
lightly. Other volumes have also been trans- 
lated into the different languages used, — 
which in Harpoot itself are the Armenian and 
the Turkish, — or prepared in them, and of 
some of these the sales Imve been considerable. 
I have not the statistics for the two years pre- 
ceding our location there, but, during the " ten 
years," a total of 85,091 volumes, besides 
many tracts, were sold from the book deposi- 
tory in Harpoot. Among these were copies of 
the Scriptures, and parts of same, 11,607 ; 
Hymn-Books, 2,758 ; Church Members' Guide, 
231 ; Abbott's Mother at Home, 609 ; Way- 
land's Moral Philosophy, 270 ; Primers, 7,315 ; 
Doddridge's Rise and Progress, 196 ; Mary 
Lothrop, 333 ; Pilgrim's Progress, 316 ; Saint's 
Rest, 258 ; Commentary on Matthew, 547 ; 
James's Anxious Inquirer, 251; Catechisms, 
1,488 ; of a book of Prayers for various 
classes, 2,072 ; and 1,700 copies of an excel- 
lent little book, a sort of " Call to the Uncou- 



122 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



verted," prepared by the pastor of the city 
church. 

The comparative smallness of these sales is 
accounted for by the fact, that, almost without 
exception, those who bought the books were 
first taught to read them. 

Aiid this sowing of the good seed of the 
Word has, in many cases, been followed by a 
rich spiritual harvest. A few from among 
many striking incidents are given, showing that 
the best way to make men acquainted with 
that eternal life which is in the Son of God is 
to induce them to search the Scriptures, which 
testify of him. 

In the village of Bizmishen, some nine 
miles west from Harpoot, was a man by the 
name of Maghak, a manufacturer and peddler 
of sesame oil, who was so notorious for his 
shrewdness in cheating his customers that he 
was known throughout all the region by the 
nickname, " Thief Maghak." He was per- 
suaded to buy a Bible and' a primer, and began 
from that to be known as " Prote Maghak," 
which was then a term of even greater re- 



THE TRUTH READ. 



123 



proacli ; for, besides being an abbreviation of 
the word Protestant, u Prote," with an almost 
imperceptible change of tone, is made to mean 
a leper j and is used with this double meaning. 
Taking a lesson from every reader whom he 
met, Thief Maghak in time learned to read his 
Bible, and to feel its power. He became an 
honest man, so much so as to be as noted for his 
honesty as he had been for his cheating. The 
Turkish owner of the soil which he cultivates 
now never measures his share of the crop which 
Maghak brings him. He knows that it is right. 

Better still, he became a humble, earnest, 
consistent Christian, and such has been his 
influence in his native village that " Prote " no 
longer means there a leper , but an honest man. 
Others, including his two brothers and all the 
members of his own household, have learned to 
read and to love the Bible. As one fruit of his 
efforts, the people of the village, with a little aid 
from us, built during 1866 a good chapel, in 
which an audience worship averaging seventy 
the past year, and increasing in number. They 
pay one-third of their preacher's salary, and 

9 



124 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

hope soon to have him for pastor, some twelve 
persons in the village being hopeful Christians. 

Meanwhile, he has not been idle as a Chris- 
tian in his oil-peddling tours. Some four years 
ago, he succeeded in selling a Bible to a man in 
Najaran, an Armenian village forty miles dis- 
tant from Bizmishen, in the Koordish Moun- 
tains east from Harpoot. There, as before in 
Bizmishen, the one Bible remained, and did its 
silent work. Its one reader found three com- 
panions to listen ; but, as Najaran is in a wild 
region little frequented by us, we knew nothing 
of the Bible or its readers, except as report said 
there was a u Prote " in Najaran. But, in the 
winter of 1866-67, the native helper in a village 
in the district went with several companions to 
visit the place. To his and their surprise, the 
villagers met them on the outskirts of the 
place, and gave them a severe beating, leaving 
the helper senseless on the snow, for dead. 
This was the way these wild men took to pre- 
vent outside sympathy from reaching and en- 
couraging the little band of Bible men inside. 
They then returned to them, saying, " Now 



THE TRUTH READ. 



125 



comes your turn to be beaten. You invited 
these 6 Protes ' to our village." Two of the 
four were beaten, one fled, and one, a man of 
some influence, intimidated the crowd by daring 
them to touch him. 

They, with the helper, then came to Harpoot, 
saying, " We do not wish our abusers pun- 
ished. We have set down the beating to our ac- 
count with the Lord Jesus, and we onlv ask 
that you give us a preacher." We gave them 
the only one available, an uneducated man, a 
member of the city church. He went. The 
mob drove him out. We appealed to the 
pasha, the Turkish ruler of Harpoot, who 
sent the helper back again. Again the mob 
drove him out, and again the pasha put him 
back ; and this time the mob desisted from vio- 
lence, saying, " These Protes are sure to con- 
quer. 'Tis said they never give up." 

The four Bible men then bought an old 
house at an expense of about thirty dollars, 
w^hicli they paid themselves, and appealed to 
us for the one hundred dollars additional 
needed to make it a suitable place of worship. 



126 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



We could not aid them so much ; and mean- 
while an audience of thirty men, women, and 
children began to meet in another place to hear 
the Bible read and explained, and to endure 
persecution as " Protes." 

And now a letter from Harpoot tells of 
other fruit from that Bible in the hands of 
Maghak. Six miles north-west from the city 
is Korpeh, a large Armenian village, where for 
ten years we tried in vain to gain entrance for 
the truth. The people were exceedingly bitter 
in their hostility, using violence to keep out 
persons who went there to talk with them. The 
Turkish owner of the soil, Osman Bey, recently 
complained to the missionaries of the attempts 
of the Protestants to enter a place where the 
people did not wish them. But this man has 
land in Bizmishen also, and just after making 
this complaint he was visited by Astadoor, one 
of his tenants and a neighbor of Maghak, and 
who, like him, had learned to be honest, and 
who returned to the Turk some grain, saying, 
" The seed has overrun. This belongs to you." 
" I wish I had more tenants like you," said Os- 



THE TRUTH READ. 



127 



man Bey ; " this is the first time I have had 
seed brought back." Astadoor, pulling out his 
Testament from his bosom, where all the Pro- 
testants are accustomed to carry it, replied, 
44 The secret of this is not in me, but in this 
book. I never did such a thing till I read 
this." The result was that the Turk ordered 
his agent in Korpeh to rent a house for a Pro- 
testant preacher to go there and teach the gos- 
pel of honesty to his tenants. 

Some years since, a man in the city of Har- 
poot, named Kevork Dashjian,* seeing a Bi- 
ble lying neglected upon a shelf in the house 
of the careless owner, borrowed it, and, being 
able to read, soon became interested in its con- 
tents. But meanwhile the owner called for the 
book. Kevork, who was poor, was thinking 
what he should do, when unexpectedly a man 
paid him upon an old debt one dollar and 
sixty cents, just the price of a Bible. 44 This," 

* Kevork is " George," and Dashjian denotes his business of stone- 
cutting. He is, then, " George Stone," and, as Protestantism is fixing 
the habit of retaining family names ; his children, whatever their pur- 
suits, will be known as Stone. We thus see going on about us that 
process which, in earlier ages, fixed family names in English. 



128 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



said he, " is God's voice telling me to buy a 
Bible." He did so, read it, and soon appeared 
in our meetings, a serious-minded inquirer. 
He became a true Christian and an intelligent, 
useful member of the church, together with 
seven other members of his large family.* 

Neighbor to him lived a man reputed to be 
the vilest person in the city ; one who, though 
an Armenian, was addicted to crimes regarded 
as peculiarly Turkish, or rather heathenish. 
He was one of those of whom the apostle says 
" that it is a shame even to speak of those things 
which are done of them in secret." He not 
only did the same, but had pleasure in them 
that did them. He was so notoriously vile that 
even the Armenians regarded their church as 
polluted by his presence. All efforts to reach 
and save him were vain, till one day he met a 
poor old man, a member of the city church, one 
who found the Saviour when past the allotted 
threescore years and ten, and who, in his age 
and infirmity, often says to us, " I have one 

* The patriarchal custom of all the sons' remaining at home, sub- 
ject, with their children, to their father, is still continued. 



THE TRUTH HEAD. 



129 



foot in the grave now, and the other will soon 
be there. When you bury me, be sure to sing, 

1 Joyfully, joyfully onward we move, 
Bound to the realms of bright spirits above. ' ' ' 

Meeting the wretched man in the street, and 
pulling a copy of the Psalms from his bosom, 
the old man persuaded him to buy it. He 
already knew how to read, and the little book 
soon awakened his slumbering conscience. Go- 
ing on business to a city a week's journey dis- 
tant, he accidentally left the little volume at 
home, but, happening to mention some of its 
wonderful words to the Turks with whom he was 
doing business, they sent a man to get it, and 
had it read. Meanwhile, burdened with a sense 
of sin, he returned home, and soon, to the sur- 
prise of all, found his way to a Protestant 
prayer-meeting, and rose begging them to pray 
for him. " Oh," said he, " I have been a dread- 
ful sinner ! Satan has bound me hand and foot. 
Pray for me that I may be set free ! " For 
some time he continued in the deepest distress, 
but at last found peace, wondering at the love 



130 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



which could save such as he. He was indeed 
in the condition of the prodigal son. His 
vices had reduced him to extreme poverty. He 
had not money enough to buy the Bible which 
he needed and desired, but when, in a prayer- 
meeting, it was mentioned that " a poor brother" 
needed a Bible, all but the twenty cents which it 
was thought best that he should pay was at once 
laid upon the desk. 

With his new-born love for the Saviour, he 
went to the Kevork before mentioned, saying, 
" Come, brother, I don't know anything, but 
you do ; come with me to the villages. You do 
the preaching and I'll take the beatings." They 
went first to the Korpeh mentioned, and he re- 
ceived from the people the expected beating. 
Again he went, and again was driven away ; but 
the third time one of his companions, a burly 
blacksmith from the city, said to the people, 
u If you stone us, we shall continue to come, till 
all the Protestants in the city will pour into 
your village ; but let us alone, and only two will 
come to talk, and you can, if you wish, shut 
your ears against them." The people heeded 



THE TRUTH READ. 



131 



his advice, and in a short time, as before re- 
lated, the Turkish owner of the soil, Osman 
Bey, ordered his agent there to lease the Pro- 
testants a house. Thus on the one hand the 
Bizmishen Bible, and on the other the Harpoot 
copy of the Psalms, have made a breach in the 
walls of darkness, superstition, and hatred, 
which, for so many years, have shut in the be- 
nighted inhabitants of Korpeh. 

Some sixty miles to the south from Harpoot, 
in the wildest part of the Taurus Mountains, 
is the city of Chermook, inhabited partly by 
Armenians, many of whom differ little from 
the wild Koords about them. Among these 
was one named Harootune (" Resurrection"). 
His rage against the " Protes " knew no bounds. 
He was a very Saul of Tarsus in his hate 
against them. He was a choolgee, or maker 
of donkey-saddles, and one day, seeing the 
Protestant native helper enter a shop near his 
own, he stabbed his big knife into the saddle 
in hand, exclaiming, " Would that this were a 
Prote ! " Not long after, he began to suspect 
that all was not true that had been told him, 



132 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



and, big knife still in hand, he went to the 
Armenian school to inquire of the teacher. 
Not getting the straightforward replies which 
he expected, in his wrath he seized the teacher 
by the hair, saying, " Sir, I'll cut off your 
head ! " and, suiting the action to the word, be- 
gan to use his knife on the back of the poor 
man's neck. The children ran screaming from 
the room, and help came and saved the teacher 
from his hands. Determined to examine for 
himself, he bought a primer from our helper, 
put it in his bosom, where the Orientals carry 
all their treasures, and begged every reader 
whom he met to give him a lesson. With 
thorough earnestness, making each lesson his 
own, he soon passed over the preliminary pa- 
ges, and came to brief sentences. One of the 
first of these is from Prov. xxiii. 17, " Be thou 
in the fear of the Lord all the day long." He 
must needs understand all as far as he goes, 
and inquires, " What is the fear of the Lord ? 
Why should we have it ? What does he do to 
us ? When shall I begin to have this fear, and 
how get it ? " etc., etc. Reading the sentence, 



THE TRUTH READ. 



133 



" Avoid sin and fear God, and your soul will 
be safe in his hands/' he exclaimed, " Oh that 
God would take my soul wholly into his hands, 
and hold it fast ! " To use his own expression, 
he " loved his primer as his eyes," and ap- 
pealed to it on all occasions, saying, " Doesn't 
my primer say so ? " "Oh, when shall I be 
able to read my Bible ! " he often exclaimed. 
He forsook the Armenian church entirely, and 
became a constant attendant at the Protestant 
chapel, and, by his zeal for the truth, became 
a standing, or rather a moving rebuke to all for- 
mal, cold-hearted Protestants. He rebuked 
one who attended chapel but half a clay on the 
Sabbath, inquiring whether it was not well to 
meet with God's people all day. 

To another, who drank a glass of wine, and, 
by way of excuse, asked, " Didn't Gocl make 
grapes ? " he indignantly exclaimed, " God 
made dogs, — go eat some dog carcass! He 
made poisons too, — go eat them and kill your- 
self!" 

When summoned before the bishop to an- 
swer why he went to the chapel, his reply was, 



134 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



" To learn to read, and for the salvation of my 
soul." One of his first acts was to call for the 
Protestant subscription-paper and put down 
his name for a share of the expenses. 

While all this occurred so recently that he 
has not, like 66 Thief Maghak," been tried by 
time, our hope is, that, having thus begun to 
run well, he will hold out to the end. 

But one more of many examples will be 
given, in which we have seen illustrated the 
power of the holy Scriptures to make their 
readers wise unto salvation. 

About seven miles south from the city of 
Harpoot, but in full view of it, among the many 
villages which dot the wide-extended plain, 
lies Perchenj, having a population of one thou- 
sand Armenians, and fifteen hundred Turks. 
The entire population were ignorant of the 
truth till, in 1858 or 1859, an Armenian, named 
Garabed Torosian, honored with the title, Var- 
jabed ("Teacher"), because he could read, 
when at work in a neighboring village bought 
a Bible and took it home. The first we knew 
of it was when, in the winter of 1859-60, a 



THE TRUTH READ. 



135 



colporter, who spent a night in the village, 
reported to us that he found seventy men as- 
sembled in a stable * listening to the " teach- 
er," who was reading his Bible. 

The result was the awakening of a spirit of 
inquiry which led Mr. Barnum and myself to 
visit the place with a view to spend the Sab- 
bath. Nearly all of Saturday night did the 
crowd continue asking, not the usual questions, 
" Why don't you Protestants make the sign of 
the cross ? Why don't you keep the fasts ? 
Why don't you have feet-washing ? " etc. ; but, 
" What does Jesus mean when he says, " Ex- 
cept a man be born again, he can not see the 
kingdom of God ' ? " " What does Paul mean 
when he says, ' I beseech you therefore, breth- 
ren, by the mercies of God, that ye present 
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable 

unto God ' ? " etc., etc. Mr. B and I were 

filled with surprise and delight to see that the 

* Stables are common places of resort in winter for crowds, both 
because they are large, and because the animals supply the places of 
stoves, which were unknown till very recently. When on missionary 
tours, a usual place of stopping is in a stable, a raised spot in the 
corner of which is the usual village guest-room. 



136 



TEN YEARS 



ON THE 



EUPHRATES. 



" teacher " had sought out such passages to 
read, and that the people, none of whom could 
read, remembered them so well. With the 
crowd constantly around us, by bad air, 
bad food, excitement, and an over-amount of 
this joyful work, Mr. B — — and myself were 
both made sick and obliged to leave, but at 
their request we sent a man to instruct them. 
The result was that scores at once learned to 
read, and bought and began to study the Bible. 
The Lord did not let his word return to him 
void. In the spring of 1865, a little church of 
ten members — increased in 1866 to forty-one, 
and twenty other hopeful converts — was formed 
there, and a pastor placed over them, — Bedros 
Apkarian, a translation of whose " call " was 
given in chapter fourth, and who is now sup- 
ported entirely by them, they also, first among 
the village communities, having decided, with- 
out aid from us, to support a school the year 
round. Opposed and persecuted by their Turk- 
ish neighbors, — some of whom do not wish to 
see a Protestant chapel erected, — they have, 
the past summer, erected a really fine chapel 



» 



THE TRUTH READ. 137 

and parsonage, at an expense of seven hundred 
dollars or more, of which one hundred and 
thirty-seven dollars is a " grant in aid " from 
us. 

But the story of that one Bible is not yet 
finished. Its readers had read, " Freely ye 
have received, freely give," and, " Go ye into 
all the world, and preach the gospel to every 
creature," and felt that the message was for 
them. Two years before the church was formed 
there, they, self-moved, or rather Bible-moved, 
organized themselves into a missionary society, 
to go two and two on Sabbaths to neighboring 
villages to read and explain the Bible, and per- 
suade others to buy and read it. 

Three or four miles to the south is Hooeli, 
with a population of twenty-five hundred Arme- 
nians, and a dozen families of Turks. In this 
central and important village we had for years 
tried in vain to gain a foothold for the truth. 
One year -we paid a Turk twenty dollars for the 
use of a room in which we put a man who used 
every possiole means to do them good. It was all 
in vain. A few persons bought copies of the 



« 

138 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



New Testament, and one man a Bible, but they 
seemed to get no benefit from them, and we 
sent the helper to another place, and left them 
alone. Afterwards we made another attempt 
to reach them by sending members of the theo- 
logical seminary to visit them occasionally, 
but to no purpose. They uniformly returned, 
saying, " It is wrong to spend money to hire 
donkeys to ride to that village." 

So, though, at my first visit to the village in 
1857, observing great apparent zeal for their 
own superstitions, I had made note, " Zealous 
in their own faith, they will be so for the truth," 
and with that hope we had tried thus hard to win 
them to the truth, we were obliged to yield, and 
leave them alone again. But not so Perchenj, 
whose Bible readers had just formed the mis- 
sionary society. The first village visited was 
Hooeli, to which two men went, Bible in hand, 
praying as they went, " Lord, give us open 
doors and hearts!" They found both, and, as 
a result, the people soon- came to us for a man 
to go and open a Protestant school among 
them. We had none ; so they chose one of 



THE TRUTH READ. 



139 



their own number, who had learned to read, 
called him " teacher," and opened a " Protestant 
school," putting our primers and New Testa- 
ments into the hands of the pupils, who — as 
the art of reading in Armenian is very easy to 
acquire — soon began to read in their own 
tongue the wonderful works of God. The fol- 
lowing winter, in 1864-65, they furnished a 
house, fuel, and lights, to a pupil of the semin- 
ary, who went to remain with them during the 
vacation of five months. The devil stirred up 
his servants to come with a mob and pitch the 
helper and all his effects into the street, or 
rather they foolishly and disobediently came of 
themselves, in opposition to his will, for surely 
the enemy of all good must be shrewd enough 
to have known that such a course would harm, 
not help his cause. At any rate, when we 
heard it, we said, and wisely, as the result has 
shown, " Praise the Lord for this ! Now he is 
beginning to do a good work in Hooeii." A 
work had already been begun by the copies of 
the Scriptures which had been sold there, by 

scores, by the Perchenj missionary society. 

10 



140 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



The little room chosen for a chapel was soon 
full to overflowing. The following summer, a 
few earnest men, with eighty-eight dollars, aid 
from us, erected a place of worship to seat 
three hundred persons ; but that proved too 
small, and during the past summer, having re- 
modeled that into a parsonage and a school- 
room for women, they have, with a little aid 
from us, erected on another spot a two-story 
building, the lower story having a school-room 
for boys and one for girls, and the upper, a 
chapel to seat five hundred people. During 
the winter of 1866-67, seventy boys, forty-two 
girls, and two hundred adults were under Prot- 
estant instruction there, and ten boys, fifty 
girls, and one hundred and sixty adults were 
taught by Armenian teachers ; and such was the 
popular feeling in favor of education and read- 
ing the Bible, that a priest among them declared 
in public in their church, " No man can be a 
Christian who does not read the Bible." In 
this opinion, understood literally, he is in ad- 
vance of us, for there are many blind and very 
aged people who can not learn to read, except 



THE TRUTH READ. 



141 



with their fingers, which some already do, with 
the third chapter of John and two Psalms put 
into blind men's Armenian for them. 

I must not forget to mention the Bible 
Society which, in imitation of Perchenj and 
other Protestant communities, these people 
formed, but in which they surpassed all their 
teachers in zeal and efficiency. Their stout 
little donkey, with two large coarse bags for 
books suspended across his saddle, came oftener 
to the city Bible Depository than the " agent" of 
any other society ; and many hundreds of copies 
of the Scriptures and other religious books 
were sold there and in the neighboring villages, 
for they too formed a missionary society, and 
entered into a contest of kindly emulation with 
Perchenj, to see which should do the most 
good. 

So much for the external work in Hooeli. 
The more recent joyful spiritual results will be 
spoken of in another place. 

I have thus tried to illustrate more vividly 
by examples than I could by mere formal state- 



142 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



merit, what Bible-selling, the first instrumen- 
tality used by us in the missionary work, is 
doing in turning the minds and hearts of men 
to the truth, whose reception is to save them. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE TRUTH PREACHED AND SUNG. 
They . . . went everywhere preaching the word. — Acts viii. 4. 




HEY did so because then, as now, it pleased 
God by the foolishness of preaching to save 
men ; but these home missionaries, thus 



driven out by Saul to do among the J ews of 
Palestine and Cyprus that work of preaching 
which he was himself to do among the Gentiles, 
took with them no well-worn manuscripts, nor 
did they " everywhere" find pulpits waiting for 
them. Preaching was not then the formal af- 
fair it has now too generally come to be. 

And when Paul began to preach among the 
Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, he 
did it in no formal way of time or place or 
method. Now he tries to win to the faith the 
Cyprian deputy, and again proclaims the word 

143 



144 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

in some synagogue of the Jews. Now we find 
him disputing publicly in the market-place of 
Athens, and now communicating the gospel pri- 
vately to those of reputation in Jerusalem. 
Now he is pointing the Philippian jailer to the 
Saviour, now sitting with the crowd of women 
by the river-side in Philippi, now standing in 
the midst of Mars' Hill quoting poetry and de- 
claring the unknown God to the cultivated 
Grecian philosophers, and yet again running 
in among the rude and excited crowd at the 
gate of Lystra to turn them, by arguments of 
another sort, from their heathen vanities to the 
only living God ; and doing it all without a 
manuscript. 

The missionary of the present time, too, 
must lay aside all stereotyped styles of preach- 
ing, and adapt himself to the circumstances in 
which he is placed, and the number and charac- 
ter of those to whom he is to make known the 
truth. He will often find no room for a formal 
text, and a " Firstly, Secondly, Thirdly," but, 
seizing the first pretext for talking which comes 
to hand, must, with Him who so often spoke to 



THE TRUTH PREACHED AND SUNG. 



145 



the people by parables, meet the ignorant, and 
perhaps prejudiced and hostile, crowd upon their 
own ground and with their own weapons.* 

We, at least, decided to call any sort of talk- 
ing preaching, in the scripture sense, which 
should, in any way, turn the attention of men 
to gospel truth, or, by gaining their good-will to 
ourselves, prepare them to receive our instruc- 
tions. 

With this latter end in view, we aim to pre- 
sent a constructive rather than destructive gos- 
pel, making no direct attacks upon the fasts and 
feasts and ceremonies of the church. Avoid- 
ing all discussion upon non-essential points,f 

* As when, in a hostile village, the missionary's spyglass, having 
drawn the curious crowd to look at a village on the distant moun- 
tains, made them willing to listen to a sermon on faith as revealing 
things unseen. 

t Those not conversant with oriental modes of thought can not re- 
alize the need of Paul's charge to Timothy, " Charging them before 
the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit ;" " But shun 
profane and vain babblings ;" " But foolish and unlearned questions 
avoid, knowing that they do gender strife." Usually the first desire 
of an Oriental is to discuss the fasts, the feasts, feet- washing, making 
the sign of the cross, or some such frivolous thing ; and it requires all 
our strength of purpose to avoid such discussions and induce our 
helpers to avoid them. 

Sometimes we are obliged to dismiss from service a man who is in- 



146 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

we try to present Christ and him crucified, 
as made known in his word. Efforts made to 
induce the people to learn to read the Bible 
have already been mentioned. The first ser- 
mon to every man and community usually cen- 
ters here, and the practical 44 application " of 
the sermon is usually, at the close, to gather 
from the crowd all those who can be persuaded 
to buy a primer and begin to put in practice the 
truth heard by learning from the preacher a 
few letters of their alphabet. 

Never shall I forget an " application " of this 
sort in Perchenj, the village spoken of in chap- 
ter fifth. At the close of a service, the ques- 
tion, 44 Grartal kedes, yegpire ? " 44 Do you know 
how to read, brother ? " having been put to 
each one present, thirteen men — no women 
were present — were thus seated by themselves 
to test the question whether the sermon on 
44 Search the Scriptures " had had any force. 
Among them were two aged men, who, in reply 

i 

curaoly addicted to this habit, for now, as in the days of the apostle, 
such strifes only subvert the hearers and "increase unto more un- 
godliness." 



THE TRUTH PREACHED AND SUNG. 147 

to the request that they should each pay three 
piasters, — twelve cents, — take a primer, and 
begin to learn to read, pointed to their white 
hair and beard with as much incredulity as if 
they had been called upon to fly. They had 
put themselves among those who were to 
" search " by hearing the Scriptures ; but when 
in a few moments they had actually learned to 
recognize several letters and call them by name, 
and were assured, that, by keeping on, they 
would soon be able to read, their incredulity 
vanished. They, with the rest, bought the 
book, in a short time learned to read, and now 
are pillars in the church in that village. 

This is a specimen of one style of preaching, 
in which perhaps more than any other, or, at 
any rate, as a preface to all other, we employ 
ourselves. Any person, who is not one of the 
blind crowd who so abound in the Orient, or 
who is not in some way disabled from learning 
to read, is regarded as not having taken the first 
step In the right direction before beginning to 
read and buying a copy of the Scriptures. 

It will of course be understood that much, 



148 TEN YEARS OJST THE EUPHRATES. 



indeed most of the missionaries' preaching, is 
not done to the churches, nor, indeed, in 
churches, nor to stable congregations in any- 
one place. Ours is pioneer, or rather apostolic 
work, — that of leading off, of mapping out the 
country, deciding what are the most eligible 
locations for native preachers, and stirring up 
the people to receive them. When this is done, 
and, by the blessing of God, a church is planted, 
our work in that place is regarded as done* ex- 
cept as we endeavor to guide and aid that 
church in their efforts to do missionary work. 

This definiteness of aim gives great definite- 
ness to the preliminary efforts. While endeav- 
oring to do good to all men as we have oppor- 
tunity, we do not go hither and thither, preach- 
ing now in this village and now in that, scat- 
tering a little good seed here and a little there 
in the wild wilderness of sin, and leaving it to 
be trampled under foot, or choked by the growth 
of weeds ; but, having selected certain places for 
the prospective location of helpers, we devote 

* The work has thus been completed hi Harpoot and Arabkir cities, 
and several villages. 



THE TRUTH PREACHED AND SUNG. 149 



our efforts mainly to them. Wherever we go, 
an audience, larger or smaller, is always at hand. 
The appearance of our hats * in any new vil- 
lage is sufficient to draw a crowd at first, whom 
we must hold and profit, if at all, by the simple, 
forcible presentation of truth in its application 
to themselves. It hardly needs to be said that 
our preaching, and largely also that of the na- 
tive ministry, as we hope, is of the plainest and 
most practical kind. We preach the truth as 
we think the hearers need it, without any fear 
of giving offense. The broad aisle has not yet 
learned to dictate to the pulpit there. In fact, 
it does not exist, all the people sitting promis- 
cuously upon the floor, the men on one side, and 
the women on the other. The time will doubt- 
less come there, as it alreadv has come in Chris- 
tian lands, when the preacher will be regarded 
more as the hired servant of the people, who, 
with itching ears, will seek teachers after their 
own lusts, and refuse to endure sound doctrine ; 



* The people all wear the fez, a cap fitting closely to the head. 
This, with a sash or shawl wound about it, forms the oriental tur- 
ban. 



150 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

but at present, whatever truth can be established 
from the Bible is patiently heard, cut where it 
may. The mass of the people are in the con- 
dition of the artless man who confessed himself 
a " miserable sinner, and not ashamed to ozvn it;" 
or, rather, I may compare them to the publicans 
and sinners in the days of Christ, who were so 
well convinced of their guilty, lost condition as 
to bear rebuke better than the proud and self- 
righteous Pharisees. Sin there, if not here at 
home, comes out with too bold and unblushing 
a front for the preacher to be mealy-mouthed 
in speaking of it. Things must be called by 
their right names. No gentle insinuations 
against sins of sinners unhappily absent, or 
supposed to be so, will serve the purpose there, 
if it will elsewhere. " Thou art the man," " I 
am speaking to you, who are here present," 
must be plainly inferred, if not said.* Accord- 
ingly, in a community all of whose members, 
with one exception, were given to lying, a ser- 

* Were we to talk there of the " great enemy of souls," instead of 
giving his name, many would wonder at which of the wicked Turks 
around them we were casting stones. 



THE TRUTH PREACHED AND SUNG. 151 

mon on " I hate and abhor lying" was safely 
and profitably applied by " Now you know that 
all of you, except brother Sarins, who sits over 
there with his feet down in the oven,* are ad- 
dicted to lying, and God means you, when he 
says, ' All liars shall have their part in the lake 
which burnetii with fire and brimstone.' If, 
then, you hope to be saved from ' the second 
death,' cease lying, and speak the truth to each 
other and to all about you." This home appli- 
cation had the effect to bring many to the 
pulpit, at the close of service, with confession 
of wrong-doing and promise of amendment, 
which was apparently kept, by efforts on the 
part of some to put away the sin which had been 
indulged in from early childhood. In another 
place, a plain sermon on " Every man that hath 
this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he 
is pure," brought two hearers to the preacher, 
with a confession of great sins, with the ques- 
tion, " What shall I do ? " and, better still, led 

* Their ovens are deep circular holes in the floor of earth, lined 
with pottery. Now, as in primitive days, to save fuel, the grass which 
to-day is, to-morrow is cast into ovens, to heat them. This grass is 
simply weeds pulled up by the roots and dried. 



152 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

the only one who could repair the wrong done 
to restore the four hundred and forty dollars 
which he had stolen. 

Our preaching, besides being soundly doc- 
trinal, presenting clearly and frequently the 
great underlying facts and truths of the gospel, 
is generally concrete rather than abstract, pre- 
senting truth and duty more in connection with 
examples and positive commands and prohibi- 
tions. A remark of Prof. Shepard of Bangor, 
Me., needs often to be heeded in the Orient. 
" Young men," said he, " preach the duties. 
Often recur to the tables of the law, and dwell 
upon ; Thou shalt, and thou shalt not/ lest you 
fill the churches with converted scoundrels." 
With the single exception of u This do in re- 
membrance of me," which some would gladly 
put first on the list, and come at once to the 
sacramental table, all duties are enjoined alike 
upon those in the church and those out of it ; 
and a result is that some who are not yet re- 
ceived to the church are as consistent in main- 
taining family and secret prayer, and making 

c 



THE TRUTH PREACHED AND SUNG. 153 



efforts and sacrifices to extend the kingdom of 
Christ, as are church-members. 

Another characteristic of the preaching of 
both the missionaries and the native ministry 
is, that it is very largely biblical. The people 
would hardly endure mere motto-sermons, 
finely-written essays, taking their occasion from 
a text which disappears with the reading. 
Many of them go to the sanctuary, Scriptures 
in hand, and demand that a " Thus saith the 
Lord" support what is said from the pulpit. 
The prevalent order of Sabbath service in Har- 
poot is, first, a prayer-meeting, in which all the 
people meet to ask God's blessing on the ser- 
vices of the day. Second, a Bible-class, in which 
the preacher and people, Bible in hand, unite 
for an hour in full and free conference on a 
previously-selected passage. In these exercises 
all the men present usually take part by asking 
or answering questions, and a very deep in- 
terest is often excited. The preacher takes the 
leading part, and in this way, by having the peo- 
ple share with him the work of investigation, 
and following up the exercise with specifying 



154 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

the moral lessons which are to be learned from 
the passage and the discussion had upon it, he 
really preaches more effectually than he could 
by continuously talking to mere hearers. The 
third exercise is a Sabbath school, in which all, 
young and old, of both sexes, unite, and in 
which the Bible and the Assembly's Shorter 
Catechism have been the text-books, the smaller 
children also repeating hymns. 

The fourth service, with a sermon, immedi- 
ately follows the Sabbath school. 

When a missionary officiates, the exercises 
are sometimes in Turkish, which is the language 
used by Mr. Barnum, and sometimes in Ar- 
menian, which Mr. Allen and myself and the 
native preachers in Harpoot generally use ; or 
they are in Arabic for that portion of the stu- 
dents and their families who have come with 
Mr. Williams from Mardin, and for those few 
people in Harpoot who use that language.* To 
this has recently been added another tongue, 

* Is ot infrequently, in the same service different persons sing in 
several languages. An instance is given at the close of chapter 
eighth. 



THE TRUTH PREACHED AND SUNG. 



155 



the Koormangie Koordish, which is to be used 
by the churches in doing their foreign mission- 
ary work in Koordistan. 

By thus infusing the Bible element so largely 
into the exercises of the sanctuary, making it 
so prominent and influential, the people be- 
come more thoroughly grounded in Christian 
truth than they could be in any other way, and 
the power of the ministry is made to depend 
more upon their soundness and their ability to 
present Bible truth than upon their power to 
preach finely-written sermons. 

M 

The results hereafter to be spoken of will 
show that God's word thus sent forth has not 
returned to him void, but has been to many 
souls a savor of life unto life. 

I must not fail to notice a third instrumen- 
tality used in bringing men to the truth, — con- 
gregational singing. Thanks to Dr. Riggs and 
some others, many of the sweetest and most 
precious hymns of the churches at home are 
doing their blessed work of teaching and sav- 
ing the different races of Turkey, 

11 



156 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

" Rock of ages, cleft for me; " 

64 Oh! happy day, that fixed my choice 

On thee, my Saviour and my God;" 
" My faith looks up to thee;" 
" Just as I am, without one plea, 

But that thy blood was shed for me," 

and others, lift up the voices and the hearts of 
thousands, in expression of affectionate and 
joyous trust, to the only Saviour of men. 

Thousands, young and old, commit these 
precious hymns to memory, and, by the very 
exercise of singing them, bring their souls into 
sympathy with the sentiments of penitence, 
faith, and tender love, which they express. Wit- 
nessing, as we do, the influence exerted upon 
the people in the sanctuary by their participa- 
ting so largely in the services, and specially by 
their uniform and hearty participation in this 
service of sacred song as a religious act, and 
not an artistic performance, under no circum- 
stances would we allow a choir, and least of all 
a quartette of mere opera performers, to de- 
prive them of this precious privilege. And if 
anything were needed to confirm this opinion 
and feeling, it would suffice to observe the 



THE TRUTH PREACHED AND SUNG. ]57 

usual effect produced upon the hearers — for 
such merely they almost always appear to be — 
of those musical achievements which not in- 
frequently form one of the chief, as well as 
most expensive, attractions of a fashionable 
city church at home. 

These precious hymns, with their accompa- 
nying tunes, usually the same as those used 
in their English dress, are rapidly making for 
themselves a place in the homes and hearts, as 
well as the sanctuaries of the people, and exert- 
ing a power as a means of grace, of which we 
could not consent to be deprived in our efforts 
to bring the perishing to a saving knowledge 
of the truth as it is in Jesus. 

In a word, reading, preaching, singing, the 
Bible, the voice of the living preacher, and 
the hymn-book, — or rather the Bible read and 
studied, the Bible talked over and preached, and 
the Bible sung, — these are the instrumentalities 
used for bringing men to Christ, for securing 
those converts who are essential to doing the 
missionary work of planting Christian church- 
es. These gained, it only remains to choose 



158 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

from among them the persons to be their spir- 
itual guides, and train them for their office. 

A word in regard to the places of worship 
may not be amiss. They are erected by the 
people themselves, we giving such " grants in 
aid " as are necessary. They are of the plain- 
est and cheapest form, erected with thick walls 
of unhewn stone laid in mud and plastered 
with the same, or with sun-dried brick, such as 
were made by the Israelites in Egypt. With 
few exceptions, they have windows covered with 
oiled paper in place of glass, and are without 
even the luxury of a board floor. The roofs are 
composed of earth rolled hard, and needing re- 
rolling after each rain-storm, and inclined only 
enough for the water to run off through a wooden 
spout projecting from the eaves. The expense 
of the common village chapels varies from one 
hundred to four hundred dollars, which sum 
is, of course, increased when, as is often done, 
a parsonage is united with the chapel. A 
drawing of one of these rude temples may not 
be uninteresting. (See page 161.) 

The people sit, in primitive style, upon the 



THE TRUTH PREACHED AND SUNG. 159 



floor, as do the Armenians in their own 
churches, and the Turks in their mosques. 
The idea that the gospel necessarily takes with 
it chairs, pews, pantaloons, and dresses, for 
those who hear it, is a mistaken one. Eemov- 
ing the end wall of a chapel gives the reader a 
view of an audience listening to a sermon. 
The women are seated on the left, and the men 
on the right. (See page 161.) 

All will take it for granted that these primi- 
tive temples, with no divisions except that of 
the low railing which separates the sexes, are 
really dedicated to God, and free in every part 
to all comers, and not portioned off for sale to 
human owners. To ask the ignorant and per- 
ishing crowd to hire a seat, or accept one as a 
favor from the owner, would repel rather than 
win them. 

No one would justify us in doing this. But 
in what essential particular does the work of 
evangelization there and in Christian lands 
differ ? Is not the prevailing custom of pew- 
selling here hindering the work of evangeliza- 
tion by separating the masses farther and far- 



IGO 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



ther in feeling and sympathy from God's house 
and people ? 

I do not plead for a "free" gospel, which, as 
really as on missionary ground, would be a bane 
and not a boon to the people. The custom of 
opening free churches for the poor appears to 
be even more objectionable, since it separates 
society into classes before God, seating the rich 
man in his luxuriously-cushioned pew in a 
splendid church, and his neighbor in the poor 
man's chapel. 

On missionary ground we feel that it is better 
to open God's house to ail, and then to press 
upon all the duty of giving money to support 
Christian institutions as a personal one to God, 
and not as a mere business transaction with 
men, in the shape of a pew-tax. 

In this way, all are made to feel at home in 
• every part of their Father's house as such, and 
in every church wherever they go, and not 
merely in some one pew of a single church, in 
which, from the custom of occupying it, they 
have learned to feel at home. 



ARMENIAN CHAPEL, INTERIOR 




ARMENIAN CHAPEL, EXTERIOR. 



THE TRUTH PREACHED AND SUNG. 161 



HOUSES OF WORSHIP. 

The manner of erecting these usually very humble temples is 
given on page 66, they being commonly of sundried bricks, with 
a foundation of unhewn stone laid in mud. They accommodate 
between two and three times as many people as do churches of 
the same size in this country, the usual estimate being one com- 
fortable sitting to each three square feet in the area of the floor, 
including that of the pulpit. The occasion often demands much 
closer packing. 

In the Armenian churches, the women usually occupy a gal- 
lery, where they are wholly concealed from the men, but in the 
Protestant places of worship they are separated from the other 
sex by a low railing. On entering, all leave their shoes at the 
door, usually upon shelves arranged for the purpose, that the 
mats upon which they sit may be kept clean. 

In their care to keep their places of worship free from dirt 
they might well be imitated by some people who sit in costlier 
churches on this side the water. 

11 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE NATIVE MINISTRY. — HARPOOT THEOLOGICAL 

SEMINAR Y. 

How shall they hear without a preacher ? And how shall they 
preach except they be sent? — Rom. x. 14, 15. 




HE question of providing for the churches 
a suitable ministry, of selecting and train- 
ing the right men to be efficient pastors, 



cost us more anxious thought and inquiry 
than any, indeed, I may truly say, than all 
others connected with the work. For reasons 
which will appear as we go on, it was apparent 
from the first that we could not rely for suit- 
able men upon the missionary seminary in Be- 
bek, Constantinople. We took it for granted 
that the churches were not only to have pas- 
tors, but that, as a body, they were themselves 
to furnish them from their own ranks. But to 
separate the men chosen for this office from their 

1G2 



THE NATIVE MINISTRY. 



163 



friends and the simplicity of their rural homes, 
— even the cities in eastern Turkey being 
mostly rural cities, — and send them a month's 
journey away to spend the period of their edu- 
cation amidst the excitements and temptations 
of the capital, were to lose time, and spoil the 
choice converts by tempting them above what 
they are able to bear. The men for pastors 
must, then, be trained for their work on the 
ground. 

With that view, Mr. Dunmore, who remained 
in Harpoot a year after our arrival, spent six 
months of the time in instructing a class of 
the most promising men. In 1859, the pres- 
ent theological seminary was established, with 
Mr. Allen at its head, assisted, in certain de- 
partments, by Mr. Barnum and myself. The 
course of study continues through four years, 
seven and a half months of each year being 
devoted to study, and the rest to labor for 
Christ in the " out-stations " of Harpoot and 
other mission stations from which the pupils 
come. A glance at the course pursued with 



164 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

any single pupil will give a definite idea of the 
plan of action in the seminary. 

Any man not under eighteen years of age, 
and who has given satisfactory evidence of 
Christian character and earnestness of pur- 
pose, and who feels a strong desire to prepare 
himself to preach,* if he can read and write 
and cipher a little, and has a good knowledge 
of the gospel story, is admitted for the first 
seven and a half months, and, at the close, 
sent, as are all the pupils, to labor in some 
city or village, doing the work of an evangelist, 
teaching people to read, persuading them to 
buy and study the Scriptures, holding meet- 
ings, &c, — in a word, doing all he can to lead 
men to Christ. 

During this vacation, which is in the winter, 
because then, more than in summer, the peo- 
ple are at home, we missionaries go from place 
to place, observing the pupils and the charac- 
ter of their labors. If any one is idle or inef- 

* In exceptional cases, persons not Christians, who wish to pre- 
pare themselves for teaching, are permitted to enjoy, for two years, 
the privileges of the seminary at their own expense. 



IIAIIPOOT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 165 

ficient, if he seems to be proud and lifted up 
by his " little learning," if he is more given to 
discussion about the non-essential matters, on 
which the people usually love best to talk, than 
to efforts to teach them the way of life, if he 
seems to be unfitted to get at and win men, if, 
in a word, for any reason he seems to be an 
unsuitable man to make a minister of, we send 
him back to his farm or his trade, saying, " It 
were a pity to spoil a good farmer or shoe- 
maker to make a poor preacher. It is your 
duty to serve Christ in some other way." 
Sometimes this prompt dismissal, which has 
several times occurred, is sufficient to cure the 
man of a curable fault, and to secure his re-ad- 
mission at a later day. Those who promise to 
make useful men are, after this winter's labor, re- 
called to the seminary, and, at the close of the 
next period of study, are again sent forth for 
another winter's la,bor. If, at the close of the 
second year, from want of ability, or any other 
cause, it appears that any one will make a good 
teacher or common helper, but not a good 
preacher or pastor, he is frankly informed of 



166 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

the fact, and dismissed with a diploma as 
" Teacher," which gives him character and in- 
fluence as such among the people. 

Those who complete the prescribed course of 
four years with honor, then graduate, receiving 
a diploma. They were then formerly examined 
by the missionaries, and, if deemed suitable 
persons, licensed as " preachers," and called as 
candidates for the pastoral office by any com- 
munity desiring their services. This licensing 
is now done by the native body of pastors and 
delegates of the churches, of whose "Union" 
some account will be given in a future chapter. 
When the licentiate has won the hearts of some 
community where there are converted persons 
enough to form a church, and has fixed with 
them the terms on which he is willing to be- 
come their pastor, they unite in calling the 
46 Union of Pastors and Delegates," who assem- 
ble, and, if they see fit, organize a church, and 
ordain him as their pastor. During the seven 
and a half months of study each year, the stu- 
dents go, usually once in two weeks, to some 
neighboring village for Sabbath work. This is 



HARPOOT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 167 

done that they may grow by teaching as well 
as by being taught, but especially that they 
may keep ever in mind the object for which 
they have come to the seminary, and may keep 
their hearts warm and their spiritual appetite 
and digestion good by Christian labor. In the 
course of study the Bible is in constant use as 
a text-book, from the first day to the last. 
They must, of course, study the grammar of 
their own language, and go through a brief 
course of mathematics, must study geography 
enough, at least, to know — what the mass of 
the people did not — that " America is larger 
than Constantinople," must enlarge and elevate 
their minds by some acquaintance with astron- 
omy, and gain some knowledge of chemistry, 
natural, mental, and moral philosophy, and 
church history. The third year is devoted 
chiefly to the study of systematic theology, and 
the fourth to preparing and delivering sermons, 
a part of which are written, that the authors 
may learn to think pen in hand, and not to be 
merely fluent, " tonguey " men, offering the 
people, as we say in oriental phrase, " mere 



» 



168 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

hot water in place of soup; " and a part un- 
written, that they may not, like too many 
learned, " deep " preachers in Christian lands, 
be mere pen-and-ink thinkers, better fitted to 
sit in their closets and make boohs to be read 
than to stand in the pulpit and preach sermons 
to be heard and felt. 

They are taught that a really " good ser- 
mon" is one which proposes and attains a good 
object, and that no sermon, however full of 
learning and eloquence it may be, is worth a 
farthing, if it does not lodge some thought and 
purpose of good in the minds and hearts of the 
hearers. To preparation for the delivery of 
such sermons, and the faithful performance 
of their pastoral duties and missionary labor 
among the perishing outside, the four years of 
seminary training are given. 

With a view to success in this object, and 
to giving to the churches the pastors they need, 
as well as securing efficient helpers in the an- 
tecedent missionary work, attention has been 
given mainly to three things : First, - — 



HARPOOT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 169 
CARE IN SELECTING- MEN. 

The seminary is not regarded as an agency 
for converting men, nor for converting igno- 
rant but hireling Christians into ministers, but 
simply as a helper to those who seem to feel, 
as did the apostle, that necessity is laid upon 
them to preach the gospel. 

The least evidence that a student has a hire- 
ling spirit, that he is laboring not for Christ, 
but for us and for pay, is sufficient to secure 
his instant dismissal ; for we feel — as do also 
the people now — that the introduction of one 
merely mercenary man into the sacred office 
would entail untold disaster upon the churches. 
In selecting students, no display of zeal in any 
direction is allowed to atone for the want of 
spirituality, the apparent possession of a heart 
warm with love to Christ ; but, at the same 
time, no one is accepted whose professed love 
has not been manifested by some effort and 
sacrifice made for the good of others. Mere 
words of piety are very, very cheap in the Ori- 
ent, and more worthless than cheap. 

The second point is — - 



170 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



CARE IN SUPPORTING MEN. 

While iii the seminary, those unmarried men 
who are too poor to support themselves receive 
a sum equal to sixty-four cents a week as a 
gratuity, increased a few cents in a way to be 
hereafter mentioned, and, while in our employ 
as helpers, they generally receive less than 
they could earn in other pursuits. The mar- 
ried men receive a dollar and twelve cents a 
week. We do not profess poverty and inabil- 
ity to give them more, but frankly tell them 
that our object is to secure men who are wil- 
ling and expect to make sacrifiee for Christ, 
and have faith enough in him, and in their 
personal call to the ministry, to trust his prom- 
ise to care for those who serve him in his ap- 
pointed way. " If he really has called you to 
the ministry," we say to them, " he will care 
for you in it. And if he really starves you out 
of it, that is his voice, saying, ' You have run 
before you were sent.' We are not his only 
treasurers, and, if we don't give you enough, 
he can send, if he choose, even the ravens to 
feed you." When the preachers become pas- 



HARPOOT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 171 

tors, the people support them better, a dollar 
or more per month being added to their sala- 
ries, which, as preachers, vary from five dollars 
to eight dollars per month. 

And we have seen the good effect of inflexi- 
ble adherence to this mode of exercising care, 
not only in turning aside some unworthy men 
who succeeded in getting through our outer 
gate, but, better still, in cultivating among the 
really worthy men a spirit of self-denial and 
affectionate reliance on Christ. Through the 
influence of two or three discontented persons, 
a very general dissatisfaction with the support 
given them was at one time excited among the 
students, and we were told that " all had com- 
bined to strike for higher wages," during the 
then coming winter. To this piece of news, 
given to the missionaries in hope of changing 
our purpose, and opening the Board's purse a lit- 
tle more, the reply was, " We know of at least 
one man who is not talking about wages. 
Krikore never talks about his bread and butter. 
He has left all that care to the Master." Going 

to him and asking him whether it was true that 

12 



172 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

the students were talking about their support, 
we received the reply, " Yes, we are." This 
was almost too much, and seeing our surprise 
and pain, he continued, " Don't say anything 
to me. I'm not talking about the amount of 
my salary. My only fear is that I shall not 
get the seven hundred and fifty piasters which 
you have put upon the people this year. Do 
you recollect that last year you were obliged 
to take me away from the people to compel 
them to pay one-third as much ? " Our only re- 
ply — we could make no other — was, "Brother 
Krikore, can't you cast that care, too, on 
Jesus?" 

To the assembled students, who rightfully 
pleaded increased prices as a reason for their 
desire for more pay, we said, " We thank God 
that he has sent high prices to test you. Had 
we a box full of gold given us by some Turk, 
with a request that we should distribute it, we 
would not add a piaster to the support of one of 
you, for now it will be apparent who has placed 
his hopes of support on our money, and who on 
the Lord Jesus." Not one of the Harpoot men 



HARPOOT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 



173 



left the service. The next clay we went with 
Krikore to Xchmeh, the village where he was 
to labor. The people assembled, and we said 
to them, " Last year you paid ten dollars, but 
this year your share, if you wish K., will be 
thirty dollars." To this they replied, " Twenty- 
four is ready, and the rest will be easy to get." 
" You succeeded in casting that care on Jesus, 
it appears," said we to Krikore, who is now 
the beloved and well-supported pastor of a 
church formed there, the women of the congre- 
gation having taken off their gold and silver 
ornaments, during the year past, and sold them 
for upwards of one hundred dollars towards 
paying for a chapel and a parsonage for him to 
occupy. And when that really lovely young 
man, in whose Christian character we had, for 
years, had implicit confidence, was examined 
for ordination, he persisted in fixing the date of 
his conversion at the time when the question, 
" Can't you cast that care, too, on Jesus ? " 
compelled him to settle the question, on whom 
he really was depending to care for him. Three 
years later, as I was about to return home, 



174 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

Krikore rose in a large meeting, in which were 
present most of those who, with him, had 
been troubled about support, and said, " I can 
not let the missionary go without making a 
confession." Then, after repeating the story 
of that day of talking about salary, he added, 
" Thus, with brazen front, I stood and replied 

to Mr. W Oh, I wonder the earth didn't 

open her mouth and swallow me up ! " Had 
he had anything to hope from such an expres- 
sion, it might be set down to that ; but when, 
as the independent pastor of an independent 
church, he thus spoke, he furnished proof that 
he — as have also many others — had re- 
ceived benefit from the discipline of the mis- 
sionaries' u care in supporting men." 

In other cases, a similar advantage has been 
gained among the people, who, seeing the pov- 
erty and hardships of students or helpers, have 
generously aided them from their own purses or 
granaries. It is a great advantage gained, — this 
giving to the churches, and to those who labor 
as helpers, a feeling of manly Christian inde- 
pendence of the missionaries, and of mutual 



HARPOOT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 175 

dependence on Christ. But this advantage can 
not be gained unless all be taught to look to 
him in pecuniary matters as well as others ; the 
students casting upon him, rather than upon 
the missionaries, the care of their support, and 
the people feeling their obligation, as stewards of 
Christ, to care as they are able for those of 
their number who are laboring for him. 
The third point is — 

CARE IN EDUCATING MEN. 

We take care, of course, to educate them in a 
thoroughly Christian way. As before said, the 
Bible is a daily text-book, constant effort being 
made to imbue their minds with the spirit of 
the great Teacher, and of the prophets and apos- 
tles. Map in hand, they travel with Jesus over 
Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, and listen to his 
teachings, and then go with Paul and his com- 
panions over Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, 
and Italy, and with him do the work of preach- 
ing and planting churches, and try to enter into 
the meaning and spirit of his epistles to them, 
till, catching his spirit, they feel that they too 



176 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

have a missionary work to do. To this daily 
study of the Bible, and effort to realize its scenes 
and character, is due, perhaps more than to 
anything else, that peculiarly Christian and ear- 
nest spirit which we are privileged to see most 
of the students of the seminary possess. Next 
to this, our greatest care has been not to edu- 
cate them too much, so as to raise them too far 
above their own people, and destroy their sym- 
pathy with them. 

It is hard for one accustomed to New-Eng- 
land institutions to rid himself of the idea that* 
men who are to be put into the pastoral office 
must have a good degree of education and cul- 
ture. It was difficult for us to feel that thirty 
months of literary training could prepare for 
the gospel ministry a man knowing little more 
than how to read and write ; but the experiment 
of trying to give thoroughly-educated pastors 
to churches in the condition of ignorance in 
which are most of those in Turkey, has proved 
a failure.* To sav nothing of the fact that 

* As the mass of the people become better educated, those who are 
to become pastors must, of course, have more education; and already 



HARP GOT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 177 

these more highly educated men become too 
expensive for the churches to support, they at 
the same time too often lose their own moral 
balance. 

Unlike those who have lived from childhood 
in the midst of an intelligent, educated com- 
munity, and become accustomed to regard 
knowledge as a necessary thing, they are, by its 
possession in a community such as are most of 
those on heathen or nominally Christian soil, so 
singled out from and lifted above the mass into 
a foreign class, that the ship seldom has bal- 
last enough for carrying so much deck-load and 
sail. 

It is impossible to educate them into the 
position and feeling of educated men in en- 
lightened communities ; and the attempt to do 
so only fills them with conceit, which is all the 
worse because acquired at foreign expense* 
They almost uniformly become unfit to preach 
the simple gospel needed by their perishing coun- 

such is the progress in that direction that an additional year will pro- 
bably soon be added to the course of study. Those who have become 
pastors have been taught the necessity of increasing in knowledge* 
and growing with their people. 



178 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

try men. We believed, too, and have acted upon 
the belief, that the necessary training should be 
given in their own vernacular, and not in a for- 
eign tongue. Notwithstanding the earnest de- 
sire of the students to acquire the English lan- 
guage, no instruction in it has been given in the 
seminary, and we have felt that to teach it 
would do harm rather than good.* Besides 
consuming time which can be more usefully de- 
voted to other things, it would expose them to 
greater temptations. 

When an ambitious young student once asked, 
" Why do you oppose our learning English ? " 
I replied, " Because I pray, 6 Lead me not into 
temptation,' and believe that I am to do to oth- 
ers as I would have them do to me. Do you 
not know that the English consul in your na- 
tive city would gladly pay you twice as much 
for serving him as the churches can in the 
ministry ? " " Are we not Christians ! " he ex- 
claimed. " I hope you are, but you are weak 

* Now that a number are settled in the ministry, we propose to aid 
them to learn to read — not speak — English well enough to use sim- 
ply-written commentaries in that language. 



HARPOOT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 179 

ones, not yet able to bear English," was my re- 
ply. Yet that " Christian," as I hope he really 
is, managed to pick up English enough to wan- 
der about for two years in foreign parts before 
he saw his folly and sin, and returned to work 
for Christ. The Rev. T. Laurie, in giving a 
sketch of the Syria Mission, says, " In 1836, a 
high-school was established at Beirut. The 
number of pupils rose as high as forty-four, and 
its prospects were flattering, but their knowl- 
edge of English rendered the pupils so useful 
to the English officers in Beirut, in 1840, that 
they became completely demoralized, and the 
school was given up ; " to which we may add, 
" And English has, as a rule, borne the same 
fruit in other missionary seminaries." I have 
been informed that, during the Crimean war, 
but one student remained in the seminary at 
Bebek, and he was the man who is now pastor 
of the church in Harpoot city. 

But not all the training in the Harpoot Sem- 
inary has been merely literary. Convinced that 
the inveterate oriental habit of smoking* should 

* That viler habit of chewing is yet unknown there. 



180 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

not be supported by " widows' mites," and be- 
ing also annoyed by the smoke and the stench 
of the rooms, we announced to the students, that, 
as it was our intention to furnish only money 
enough for food, we should cut off a piaster a 
week from the allowance of each smoker. Some 
laughed at this small reduction, and were quite 
sure they could stand it, till they discovered, at 
the close of the second week of smoking, that 
one piaster a week reduction meant " keep on 
cutting off till we find out just how much will 
suffice for food without tobacco." # One man's 
" teeth ached when he didn't smoke." " Pull 
them out," we replied ; " the rule can't be 
modified to suit special cases." The result at 
last was a rule forbidding smoking by the stu- 
dents while in the seminary. 

A missionary was one day engaged in a 
piece of work, and needed aid, for which he 
called upon the students. To his surprise, but 
two came, of whom the Krikore before men- 
tioned was one. The result was the discovery 
of the cause, in the idea that manual labor was 
beneath men who were in process of education 



HARP DOT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 181 

for the high office of the ministry, and another 
result a cutting down of their eighty-four cents 
per week allowance to sixty-four, with leave to 
earn three cents daily by working an hour 
with a missionary, in making a much-needed 
road around the mountain-side. At first, few 
came, but in the end appetite proved stronger 
than prejudice, and all learned that men of 
dignity can dignify labor, and gained, besides, 
a keener appetite for their food, and more 
power for study. Now the man who should 
hold that old idea would be looked upon as 
showing a lack of self-respect by such over- 
anxiety about his dignity. 

The total number of pupils — not including 
the Koordish department of six Koordish-speak- 
ing pupils added by the " Harpoot Evangelical 
Union " the past year, nor the Arabic-speaking 
nine brought by Mr. Williams from Mardin — 
has been eighty-one, who spent, previous to 
1867, a total of one hundred and ninety-two 
years in study, twenty-four of which, or one- 
eighth of the whole, were at their own expense. 
Of these eighty-one students, forty-seven were 



182 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



married men, and thirty-four unmarried. In- 
cluding incidental expenses, the support of a 
married man and his family, each seven and a 
half months, has cost forty-two dollars and 
thirty-three cents, and that of a single man 
twenty-two dollars and twelve cents, in coin. 
The total expense of the seminary to the Board, 
previous to 1867, was seven thousand four hun- 
dred and seventy dollars. 

Eighteen pupils graduated in 1863, seven in 
1865, and eleven in 1867, of whom thirty-two 
are in service either as pastors, preachers, or 
helpers, and two have died. Ten students, 
who spent a total of nineteen years in study 
at the Board's expense, are now, for different 
reasons, not engaged in " Christian work," 
while eight, who supported themselves, and 
who spent a total of fourteen years in study, 
have proved themselves worthy, and are, thus 
engaged. Striking the balance between these, 
we have a loss of less than three per cent, on 
the money invested by the American churches 
in the seminary. 

It should be said, however, that of the ten 



HARPOOT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 183 

reckoned as " lost" to the work, because not 
engaged as nominal " helpers," several are 
among the best members of the churches ; one 
being an earnest, efficient deacon in the Har- 
poot city church, and others pillars — not pil- 
lows — in village churches. But three or four 
have proved themselves unworthy. 

It is our hope, ere many years, to commit 
the larger part of this seminary work to the 
churches. At a meeting in April, 1867, the 
pastors and preachers pledged each one-tenth 
of his salary to support suitable native teaghers 
to take charge of the more common studies, 
and an excellent young man, named Garabed 
Pilibosian (Garabed the son of Pilibos), a 
graduate of the class of 1863, — one who, at ten 
years of age, wrote and signed a " covenant to 
be the Lord's," and has from that day lived 
an earnest, consistent Christian life, — has been 
chosen " Union teacher." Would that we 
could rescue him from that early death by con- 
sumption with which he is threatened ! * He 

* A translation of an extract from a letter of his just received may 
not be uninteresting. "My health is as when you last saw me. I 
never forget that word of my loved Saviour, ' As many as I love I re- 



184 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



has previously been in our employ as assistant 
teacher. Thus the first step has been taken 
for transferring to the churches the work of 
training their own pastors ; a work, however, in 
whose higher departments they will for some 
time need our aid. 

buke and chasten,' and that ' He scourgeth every son whom he re- 
ceiveth.' I am also sure that all things work together for good to 
them that love God. Having, then, such a Lord and God, I have 
committed myself wholly to him. No leaf of a tree moves without 
his command. All things which happen upon the earth come to 
pass by his all-wise and good providence, and especially those things 
which happen to his servants. Therefore, with a satisfied and thank- 
ful heart, I can say, ' Let his blessed will be done ; so it has seemed 
good in his sight.' " For more in regard to this young man, see 
chapter tenth. 



HARPOOT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 185 



THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AND CHAPEL. 

The accompanying sketch gives a good idea of the western 
portion of the mission premises in Harpoot city, as seen from 
the south. The house at the left was built mostly at the ex- 
pense of his people for the pastor of the church. Of the four 
hundred and forty-one dollars which it cost, we paid one hun- 
dred and thirty-eight dollars. It was in regard to the erection 
of this house that the committee called, as mentioned on page 
287. In the lower story of the central building is a chapel, and 
in the upper story the rooms of the theological seminary, 
which are eight in number, four being used for school and re- 
citation-rooms, and four as lodging-rooms by the unmarried 
students, who cook their own food in the low kitchen seen in the 
rear of the main building. The married pupils, with their 
wives, occupy rooms in the city rented for the purpose. At 
the right of the chapel the crowd met for worship in April, 
1867, as mentioned on page 302. Mr. Williams, who was a practi- 
cal engineer before he became a missionary, by the aid of the 
students, at three cents an hour (see page 181), has since graded 
the area and prepared it to accommodate — with seats on the 
ground, of course — some twenty-five hundred persons. 

At the left of the chapel, and in its rear, is the Protestant 
graveyard. The single gravestone seen is that of "Pilgrim 
Hagop," a sketch of whose history will be given at another 
time. Upon the right is the house of Rev. H. N. Barnum, and 
in the rear of it is seen the little missionary cemetery, in which 
lie the remains of Mrs. Williams, and ten of our " little ones," 
whom Jesus has taken to himself. The continuation of the 
missionary premises towards the east is given at the close of 
chapter eighth. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



HARPOOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 

A bishop, then, must be blameless, the husband of one wife.-— 
ITim. iii.2. 

a 

HE native ecclesiastical body, composed 
of the pastors and delegates of the church- 
es, interpret this rule literally, ordaining 
only married men. They say, " Old bach- 
elors have no real sympathy with women, else 
they would marry ; nor with children, for they 
think these should be whipped into silence. 
•So, to these two classes, who constitute three- 
fourths of the community, bachelors can not 
be pastors at all. And, as one-half of the cares, 
joys, and sorrows of the remaining fourth, the 
adult males, are connected with their family re- 
lations, unmarried men can only have half 
sympathy with them, so that they become half 
pastors to one-fourth of their people, being 

186 




HARP GOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 



187 



each only an eighth of a pastor." No one is 
ordained who does not become a pastor. 

It has already been seen that a majority of 
the prospective bishops in eastern Turkey have 
wives before entering upon their course of 
study. In a country where the divine ordi- 
nance of marriage is not only better obeyed 
than in New England, but where it is re- 
garded as a parental duty to provide each son 
with a wife, few reach manhood unmarried. 
If, then, we would not practically " put asunder 
what God hath joined together," by educating 
one party and leaving the other in ignorance, 
we must educate the wives of the students. 
The next step, therefore, after opening the the- 
ological seminary, was to open one also for the 
students' wives. The women keep house for 
their husbands in rooms which we provide for 
them in the city, and attend school about seven 
hours a clay on five clays of the week. 

Some of them are mothers of several chil- 
dren, and one, at forty years of age, is a grand- 
mother. So the united seminaries have a nur- 
sery, where the younger children are committed 

13 



188 TEN YEA11S ON THE EUPHRATES. 

to the care of a woman employed for the pur- 
pose, while the older ones go to one of the city 
schools, and their mothers to the female semi- 
nary. Here every effort is made to improve 
their minds and hearts, and, indeed, their bodies 
too, for in that land of houses with earth roofs 
continually sifting down dust upon the occu- 
pants, the scriptural injunction to " cleanse 
ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh" has 
new force. 

Some of the women are at first exceedingly 
uninteresting and uninterested. They come, 
not because they desire knowledge, but in obe- 
dience to their husbands and our rule requir- 
ing each student to bring his wife. 

Many of them are not Christians, but it is a 
pleasing fact, that, of the ninety-four pupils 
connected with the seminary previous to 1867, 
forty-one were hopefully converted while in it, 
and many of them are still pupils. As in the 
other seminary, here also the chief text-book 
is the Bible, which is put, on the first day, into 
the hands of even those who can not read ; a 
primer being added, with, " This is the key to 



HARPOOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 



189 



God's treasure-house of knowledge, and your 
first duty is to learn to use it." 

The one point constantly aimed at is to 
teach them to read this book intelligibly to the 
women of the communities in which they spend 
the winters with their husbands. Miss West, 
the teacher, is obliged, at times, to resort to 
extra forcible appeals to wake up some slug- 
gish mind to a sense of the importance of read- 
ing correctly ; as when, at one time, in the 
usual morning devotions, she told the Lord of 
her fear that some of her careless pupils would, 
by their blundering reading of his word, be 
blind leaders of the blind, and destroy instead 
of saving souls. A responsive groan from the 
guilty ones told that they began to feel. Oth- 
ers, again, make very gratifying progress, and 
are not only able to read intelligently, and to 
write and cipher and learn lessons in geogra- 
phy and astronomy, but, what is better still, 
they become really intelligent students and ex- 
pounders of the Bible, and, with hearts warm 
with love to Christ, are wise and efficient in 
winning; souls to him. 



190 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

Formerly, though not now, a few day pupils, 
girls and women, were received from Harpoot 
city, upon payment of tuition, which we re- 
quired from the first, and, by doing so, made 
the people feel, not that they were doing us a 
favor in sending pupils, but we one to them 
in receiving them. When the seminary was 
about to be opened, and a day was fixed for 
examining applicants for admission, Ave waited 
with some anxiety to see what would be the 
effect of our rule that each accepted applicant 
should at once buy and pay for all the books 
to be used during the year, adding also one 
dollar and sixty cents for a ticket of admission. 
The result justified our hopes ; and we were 
obliged to send some girls away in tears who 
were not qualified to enter. 

Among those not received were two girls, 
whose parents a short time before had declined 
to buy a book needed for preparatory study. 
But that preparatory school was free, while en- 
trance to the seminary was to be paid for, and 
that fact made the parents willing to give a 
much larger sum for the books to be used in it. 



HARPOOT FEMALE SEMINARY, 



191 



The influence of sending away those girls was 
greater in gaining attention to the seminary, 
and arousing popular feeling in favor of educa- 
tion, than that of ten years of free admission 
to any school would have been. 

In opening the seminary, we had two objects 
in mind, besides educating the students' wives. 
First, to excite public attention to the subject 
of female education. With this view, months 
beforehand, we gave notice of our intention to 
open the school, and of our purpose to admit 
only those girls who should study hard to pre- 
pare themselves, and, unless too poor, have the 
money ready to pay for a ticket of admission. 
The other object was to prepare educators ; per- 
sons who, as pastors' and preachers' and teach- 
ers' wives,* should teach schools in the places 
where they should be located. The seminary 
was thus to prepare a leaven to be cast into 
the different communities. 

But the unmarried students would also need 

* I say " as wives/' because, such, are the customs of oriental soci- 
ety, that young women seldom remain unmarried long to teach 
school, even if the attempt to have them do so were safe. 



192 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



educated wives. Indeed, their efforts to secure 
even uneducated companions threatened, at 
one time, to be in vain. The almost universal 
purpose of parents to give their daughters in 
marriage only in their own immediate neigh- 
borhood forbade giving them to those who, like 
preachers, were liable to go to the ends of the 
land. 

We had seen an intelligent graduate of an- 
other seminary obliged by this feeling to marry 
a girl, who, besides being unable to read, did 
not even know her husband's native tongue ! 
s If, then, we would not see the work hindered 
by this popular prejudice, we must in some 
way remove it. 

With this view we received fifteen girls from 
places outside of Harpoot, who were admitted 
upon the condition, to which they and their 
parents assented, that, either married or un- 
married, they should aid in the missionary 
work. Their matrimonial arrangements re- 
mained where they were before, in their hands 
and those of their parents ; but, without our 
leave, they were not to marry one not em- 



HAUPOOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 



193 



ployed in " Christian work " as a pastor, 
preacher, or teacher. 

If any one should ask, " Was not that undue 
meddling ? " I reply, Not at alL We only 
made a condition, to which all concerned freely 
assented, that those educated by us at the cost 
of the Lord's treasury should marry, if at all, 
" only in the Lord," and, in so doing, provided 
for them far better husbands than they would 
otherwise have found. 

Now not only Protestant preachers, but even 
common Protestants, command a high premi- 
um in the matrimonial market of Harpoot, so 
much so that one of the bitterest enemies of 
the truth in the city recently had her daughter 
taught to read, and gave notice that she would 
give her in marriage to a Protestant ; " for," 
said she, " they treat their wives well." 

Then, too, it was our right and duty to take 
good care, that, by the marriage of the pupils 
of the seminary to common persons, instead of 
their assuming positions of influence in carry- 
ing on the missionary work, the missionary 
teachers secured from America, at so great sac- 



194 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

rifice and expense on their part and that of 
their friends and the churches at home, should 
not become mere teachers of common schools, in- 
stead of being teachers of effective laborers for 
Christ. The traveling expenses of these fifteen 
boarding pupils, as well as that for clothes and 
books, — sold by us to them at half the usual 
price, — and most other incidental expenses, 
are paid by their friends, some of whom also 
bear a part of the expense of board, which for 
seven and a half months is about twenty dol- 
lars, in coin. 

There have been in all ninety-four pupils, 
thirty-four of whom have been boarders, ten of 
these last having paid their own board in part. 
Twenty-nine women and girls have graduated, 
having completed the course of study, which is 
three years for girls, — who are better fitted at 
entering, — and four for the married women, 
their first year being regarded as preparatory. 
A number of others, having spent one or two 
years in the seminary, have been married to 
pastors, preachers, or other helpers. At grad- 
uation each one receives a diploma, of which 



HARPOOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 195 

there are two kinds. For those who complete 
all the studies, the form is, — 

"This certifies that the bearer" — giving 
her name — " has for three years been a mem- 
ber of the Harpoot Seminary, and that, by her 
progress in study, and by her good behavior, 
she has given pleasure to her teachers, and 
they hope that she will be useful in the work 
of the Lord." The diploma for those who are 
unable to complete all the studies has a some- 
what different preface, but the same close. 

The one great object of the school is not to 
educate so many persons, but, by a three years' 
course of Christian training, to prepare them 
to be laborers for Christ. And it is pleasing to 
see how the efforts thus made have been blessed, 
and how much of the spirit of Christ some of 
the pupils have. 

Prominent among them is one who is now as- 
sistant teacher, Kohar by name, which means 
" Jewel," and such she is, though deformed in 
body. Years ago, the first of her father's family, 
of a score or more of persons, she heard and 
learned to love the truth, and, being sorely per- 



196 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

secuted in her native village, Shepik, fled for 
protection to the missionary's house in Arabkir. 
Her friends pursued, and led her back by her 
hair, and she followed the missionary's advice, 
to endeavor by Christian patience to win them 
to Christ, till they all became friends of the 
truth. When the Harpoot seminary was opened, 
they consented to her coming, and, as pupil and 
assistant teacher, she has remained there till 
now. The four and a half months of vacation in 
winter she spends in evangelistic labors among 
the women of the villages about the city, often 
having from one hundred to two hundred pre- 
sent at her daily meeting. When she has 
spent a week or more in one village, those of 
the next come for her, and, mounting her on a 
donkey, take her to their village for a similar 
series of meetings. Her sincere and earnest 
piety exerts a powerful influence upon the mem- 
bers of the school. In a letter just received 
from her, giving some account of the closing ex- 
ercises of the last school year, she speaks of her 
joy in seeing the improvement which the pu- 
pils have made during the year, especially in 



HARPOOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 197 

carefully obeying all the rules of the school. 
" I am sure," says she, " that the Lord has been 
with us all the time, the pupils have so con- 
scientiously kept the rules as they learned them 
last year, not waiting for Miss West to repeat 
them." But what gives her special joy is that 
five of their number have hopefully found the 
Saviour. She then mentions the different places 
to which the girls have gone to spend the win- 
ter in teaching ; for they too, like the pupils of 
the other seminary, pass their vacation in Chris- 
tian labor, receiving salaries of about three 
dollars per month, out of which they pay their 
board. 

During the year past, Kohar and some of the 
pupils were accustomed to go, two and two, ac- 
companied by some trusty man, to spend the 
Sabbath in Christian labor in villages near the 
city, and great was their joy in the employment. 

Says Miss West, in a letter just received from 
her,* " I mentioned in my last the new, or 
rather increased missionary spirit in the school, 

* It is due to Miss West to say that none of her letters which are 
quoted were written for the public eye. 



198 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

in connection with labor at the villages on the 
Sabbath. Kohar and Marine** spent the next 
Sabbath at Hulakegh and Bizmishen. The next 
afternoon we took half an hour to hear their 
story, and that of others who had also gone out. 
At Hulakegh, one hundred women came to Ko- 
har' s meeting, and ten or twelve to that of Mar- 
ine} for church-members, at the same time. 
They had a most interesting story to tell. At 
Bizmishen they met thirty-five women, besides 
some isolated cases by the wayside. Sooltan told 
of her visit to "Yegheki, and Toma Hudhersha 
of her Sabbath in Iclimt. I can not describe 
to you the glow of soul with which this good 
woman told her story in broken Armenian. f 
She had labored with thirty-five women in a 
tongue not her own, and really seemed to have 
come back renewed in soul and body too. Our 
half hour's talk turned into a prayer-meeting, 

* A young widow from Malatia, who sold all the jewels given her 
by her husband and friends, to get the means of coming to the semi- 
nary in spite of those friends. There are also two other young wid- 
ows among the fifteen boarding pupils. 

f She came, with her husband, from Mardin, and her native tongue 
is Arabic. 



HARPOOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 199 

and used up part of the afternoon, but the 
effect upon us all was most blessed. 

" Soon after, Loosintak, of Bitlis, Marta, of 
Arabkir, and Manoosh, of Diarbekir, came beg- 
ging most earnestly that I would let them go 
with the older sisters and teach the children. 
I shall never forget their touching earnestness. 
A new baptism seemed to descend upon the 
whole school, and the voice of prayer ascended 
morning, noon, and night." 

In another part of her letter, Miss West 
says : u I proposed a 4 Mothers' Association ' to 
the women of the school. ' Thirty-nine at- 
tended the meeting, who have fifty children 
now living;' so the secretary's record says. 
We organized, and chose a committee of four, 
to plan and conduct meetings in turn, semi- 
monthly. We have had two meetings. The 
children who are old enough come with their 
mothers to every other meeting. On Wednes- 
day last, twenty-four children came, bright and 
clean. Toma * Sarkisian conducted the first 

* Toma is also the name of one of the young preachers wanted in 
Perchenj (chapter fourth), but his name is in another language. 



200 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

part admirably ; read the first verses of the 
sixth chapter of Ephesians, and talked to the 
mothers most earnestly and appropriately, 
illustrating her remarks. Then she turned to 
the children, and oh, my heart was cheered ! 
Then two earnest prayers, after which I cate- 
chised the little ones, and heard them recite 
their hymns and Scripture passages. Every 
child, however small, had something ready ; the 
Arabic children in Arabic. 'Twas a sight to 
make one glad. And how those mothers' faces 
shone ! I had Mr. Allen's melodeon down, and 
we sang many pieces. One boy repeated the 
13th of 1 Corinthians. When he said, so man- 
like, — 6 When I was a child I spake as a 
child,' &c, 6 but when I became a man I put 
away childish things,' it made us all laugh, and 
him too. Our girls were greatly interested, and 
stood up most of the time, as they were behind 
the rest. When we closed, all seemed very 
happy ; and as they passed out they dropped 
their free-will offerings into the box. Many a 
mother held up her child with the copper in 
its little hand. Let no one believe that this 



IIARPOOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 



201 



people can not be taught to give. It is latent 
in their hearts." 

The more advanced pupils in the school man- 
ifested the deepest interest in the books of John 
and Hebrews, and in theological topics upon 
which stated lessons were given. Says Miss 
West, " Most blessed have been the Bible and 
theology lessons to pupils and teacher. The 
savor of those last chapters of John remains 
with us still. It seems to hallow the rela- 
tion of teacher and pupil ; we sit together in 
' heavenly places,' and feel that we are one in 
Him. 

u We one day spent nearly two hours on the 
close of the eleventh and the first verses of 
the twelfth chapter of Hebrews ; not so much 
in exegesis as in earnest talk about Grod's plan 
of employing man in labor for the salvation of 
man, — how he shrinks not from suffering his 
most faithful and beloved servants to be c af- 
flicted and tormented,' in want, ' destitute,' 
to wander about the earth homeless, to endure 
tribulation even to the end. And then we re- 
called how he i spared not his own Son,' and 



202 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



how Jesus said to his disciples, when about to 
leave them, 6 Kemember the / word that I said 
unto you, The servant is not greater than his 
Lord.' I entered into the subject more fully, 
because the husbands of two of the women in 
the class had said to Mr. Barnum that they 
could not live on their monthly stipend, and he 
had said to them, ' Go back, then, to your 
trade.' When we touched the tender spot, — 
without personal allusion, of course, — these 
and one or two other women winced and began 
to excuse such complaints. This gave more 
force and point to the subject, and we had a 
solemn time when we came up at last to the 
great day of accounts, and the reward the Mas- 
ter will give his own faithful, self-denying co- 
workers. One of the good women summed it 
all up when she said, 6 If the heart is full of 
love to Christ, everything which we do and 
suffer for him will come easy.' " 

I have made this quotation because it both 
shows the kind of instruction given, and that 
the influence of the seminary is fully in har- 
mony with the efforts in other departments to 



HARPOOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 



203 



make all the helpers and the churches feel that 
their relations are with Christ, and their de- 
pendence must be on him, and not on us. 

If any human instrumentality, more than 
others, has given success to missionary efforts 
in Harpoot, it has been this entire agreement of 
all the missionaries, male and female, in carry- 
ing out this, which we regard as an essential 
idea of missionary policy ; one which relieves 
missionaries from all undue anxiety, from all 
temptation to make use of compromises and 
expedients, and enables them to go fearlessly 
forward upon a uniform line of action. We 
have all felt that the foundation of God stand- 
eth sure, having this seal, " The Lord knoweth 
them that are his," and that those who are his 
will be most benefited by faithfully and kindly 
pointing out to them their duties to him, and 
leaving them to do those duties, or bear the 
penalty of not doing them. 

It is one of the most encouraging facts in re- 
gard to this seminary, that so many of its pu- 
pils have so much practical faith in Christ, and 
that, by daily contact with Bible truth, their 

14 



204 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



minds are becoming constantly more and more 
elevated and ennobled. 

Twenty-three of their number were, during 
the year past, instructed by Miss West in theo- 
logical topics, and, on examination-day, bore a 
creditable examination upon such points as the 
assembled pastors and preachers chose to bring 
up, among which were the trinity and the 
atonement. Among them were some from the 
Arabic part of the field, who have, within a 
short time, acquired not only new ideas of 
truth, but a new language, the Armenian, in 
which to teach them to others ; and one of the 
most touching incidents of the school-year was 
the effort of these women to do missionary 
work in their newly-acquired tongue. 

The effort has been made to unite the differ- 
ent races, with their different languages, in this 
one seminary ; but the trial shows more and 
more the need of a similar school in the Arabic- 
speaking portion of the field, to share with the 
Arabic theological seminary, under the care of 
Mr. Williams, in Mardin, the labor of training 
in their native tongue, and giving to the rising 



HARPOOT 



FEMALE 



SEMINARY. 



205 



churches of that region also, the laborers 
needed. The Board has accordingly decided 
to send out two ladies to take charge of such a 
seminary. 

It has been the misfortune of the Harpoot 
seminary to have frequent changes of teachers, 
the first teacher having remained but a year, 
Misses Fritcher and Pond (now Mrs. Williams) 
a year each, — the former having left her own 
seminary in Marsovan during that time, — and 
Miss West still remaining. It is to be hoped 
that Misses Seymour and Warfield, who have 
now gone to take charge of the school, will be 
enabled to complete its work and establish an- 
other of a similar character elsewhere. In 
what has been said it is implied that we pro- 
pose to open such schools only in connection 
with theological seminaries, and for raising up 
Christian educators. The care of establishing 
and sustaining schools, to do directly the work 
of educating the masses, we leave to the 
churches, who have already taken some steps 
towards opening a boarding-school in Harpoot ; 
Kohar, the assistant teacher in the missionary 



206 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

seminary, having made the first contribution 
towards it by giving four dollars and forty 
cents from her annual salary of twenty-four 
dollars. This school will need from America 
only contributions of prayers, unless some kind 
friend give a little aid toward erecting the 
needed buildings. 

I add as a postscript portions of a private let- 
ter received from Miss West since the preceding 
was written. The notes are mine. 

" After the lapse of several weeks, I take up the 
thread of my long narrative where I dropped it, at 
the closing exercises of our school-examination. 

"Pastor Mardiros, of Harpoot, presented the 
diplomas to our graduating class, of fifteen women 
and girls. His remarks were very impressive. 
Among other things, he said he well knew that each 
one would take with her one or more evil spirits. 
One would say, ' Now you are somebody ; you have 
been educated, and are able to do what others can 
not do,' etc., thus puffing her up with pride and 
self-conceit; another would whisper, ' After all, 
what has your time spent in school amounted to ? 
You have only made a beginning ; you know but very 



HARPOOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 



207 



little, and are not fit to set yourself up as a leader 
to others ! ' He warned them of the dangers that 
lay in these two extremes, and exhorted them to 
keep close to the great Teacher in the simplicity of 
faith, saying to the first suggestion, c By the 
grace of God I am what I am, and only through 
Christ can I do any good ; 5 to the second, ( Sa- 
tan, get thee behind me ! I am in the place God 
designed for me ; that is the best place for me, and 
what he has taught me I will, with his help, teach 
to others. 5 

" I wish you could have seen that class, as each 
one stepped forward and received her diploma from 
the hand of the good pastor; some of them so 
gracefully. Pastors Hagop, of Hulakegh, Mardiros, 
of Malatia, and Simon, of Bitlis, followed in excel- 
lent addresses to the class. Their hearts seemed 
to overflow with joy over what they had seen and 
heard ; and yet they felt that much danger lay in 
the future. Said Pastor Simon, 4 Our joy is not 
yet full. We shall wait to see your future course, 
— what you will actually do when you go out into 
the world again. It may be some of you will cause 
us to hang our heads for shame ; you may so con- 



208 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

duct as to make your teachers say, c Would they 
had never entered this school ! ' 

" His allusion to the good work one of our grad- 
uates is accomplishing in Bitlis was encouraging.^ 

" Our missionary brethren then spoke ; Mr. Wil- 
liams, through Mr. H. 1ST. Barnum,— one of his char- 
acteristic and telling speeches. The pith of it lay 
in 'chewing the cud' of Bible truth every day 
and all day ; meditation on the morning reading, 
be it never so small a portion ; alluding to the ru- 
minating of cows and buffaloes. 

" The homely illustration will cause it to stick ! 
I think no one present will ever forget it; and 
many may practice this spiritual rumination in con- 
sequence. Our new brother, H. S. Barnum, made 
a brief and pleasant speech by the aid of his name- 
sake's tongue. Meanwhile, many of the people had 
come into the evening meeting, and it was decided 
to go right on and unite the two exercises. 

" Rev. H. N. Barnum gave a most solemn and 
thrilling turn to his closing address by pointing to 
the last great 4 Examination ' awaiting us all, when 

* A widow named Mariam, who went from Harpoot, has for 
two years been teaching a school in Bitlis, about eight days' journey 
east from Harpoot, where Simon is pastor of a church. 



UAllPOOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 



209 



the Master would present his diplomas, in the 
words, c Well done, good and faithful servant, en- 
ter thou into the joy of thy Lord ! ' I never knew 

Mr. B to rise to such a strain of eloquence (I 

perfectly understood his Turkish), and the effect 
was electrical. Two or three earnest prayers were 
offered, and the exercises closed. 

"Thus ended the day. The next morning, 
Friday, the school assembled for a c farewell meet- 
ing.' The graduates were seated by themselves. 
I read portions of Scripture, which I wished them 
to mark and read often, and then made my fare- 
well speech, reviewing the past three years, and 
looking forward to their future, and to eternity. It 
was a solemn season. We all wept together. Then 
Kohar spoke of our pleasant relations, and what a 
joy and comfort some of those dear women had 
been to her ; and, as I had addressed her as my 
c faithful fellow-worker, without whose influence to 
aid much of my labor would have been lost,' she 
said I had been c a mother, more than a mother to 
her,' &c. &c. Then Eva # addressed the school. 
She told them how great had been her desire to 
see the Harpoot school, and now that God had 

* The Arabic-speaking assistant teacher. 



210 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

brought her here to take a part in it, how great 
was her joy to see its prosperity. She gave them 
some excellent words of advice, and then led us to 
the mercy-seat in a fervent prayer. 

" Toma, of Diarbekir, followed in such an out- 
pouring of soul in supplication, thanksgiving, and 
praise as could only come from the indwelling of 
the Spirit. I was amazed, humbled, and rejoiced ! 
We then sang a hymn, and descended from that 
holy mount of heavenly communion. Misses Sey- 
mour and Warfield were present, and each said a 
few sweet words through me to the school, asking 
their prayers for success in the study of the lan- 
guage during the winter. I followed them in a few 
remarks about Miss W.'s mother and Miss Sey- 
mour's friends, — what it is to leave all for Christ. 

"After they were dismissed, I saw the good 
Pastor Simon surrounded by a group of our girls, 
in earnest and apparently solemn talk with them. 
He soon afterwards wished to see me, and then 
asked if there was one of our scholars who would 
be willing to go and labor in Moosh.* I thought I 
would test them all, and, going down-stairs, said, 
6 Pastor Simon wishes to know if any of our schol- 



* See page 208. 



HARP GOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 211 

ars are ready to go and work for Christ in the dark 
regions beyond.' The word flew from room to 
room, and five answered to the call, with such 
beaming faces you would have thought some great 
joy had come to them, — Marine, of Malatia, Ma- 
riana, of Maden, Marta, of Arabkir, Manoosh, of 
Diarbekir, and Badaskhan, of Shepik. # 

" They almost ran to meet the pastor. It was 
no idle enthusiasm. They had counted the cost, 
and received this call as a direct answer to prayer. 
It made me think of Dr. Anderson or Dr. Clark 
going to South Hadley for missionary teachers. 
Most kindly and faithfully did B. Simon lay the 
whole undertaking before them, portraying the tri- 
als they would have to endure among a people so 
low, degraded, and ignorant. He told them of his 
wife's experience in Khanoos, where Loosintak, 
their first child, was born in a stable; how the 
water leaked from the earth above, and was kept 
from her bed by a shelving board. That stable was 
partly under ground, dark and dirty. Then he 
gave them encouragement to hope that seed sown 
would sometime spring up. 

" Our girls will never, I trust, lose the benefit of 

* These places are found on the accompanying map. 



212 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

that long and interesting visit with this godly man. 
It makes me realize the importance of keeping alive 
the bond of sympathy between our scholars and 
the native pastors. 

" Saturday morning I was requested by Mrs. 
Allen to come to her parlor, as some persons were 
wishing to see me there. I found there assembled 
the class of graduates, who greeted me most cor- 
dially and gave me a seat of honor. # After a few 
moments, Toma, of Diarbekir, advanced, and in be- 
half of the class presented me with a handsome 
silver back-comb, suitably inscribed, as a testimo- 
nial of their grateful affection.f She added, as the 
tears started to her eyes, c We owe you more than 
words or gifts can tell ! ' The whole class looked 
so joyful, and all requested that I would c wear it 
every day.' 

" It was a perfect surprise. I had no thought of 
their attempting anything of the kind. I told them 
so, and that I did not seek theirs but them; that 
I had received, during the summer, proof of affec- 

* This distinction between the chief seat and others is still, on all 
occasions, regarded in the Orient. ' 

t The class got this up entirely among themselves, no one beside 
knowing of it. They took a comb of horn to the silversmith and had 
him try till he succeeded. 



HAUPOOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 



213 



tion, in words and actions, of love and sympathy, 
which I prized more than treasures of gold and sil- 
ver. I could say in all sincerity that I loved thern 
tenderly, and it had been very sweet to teach them, 
this year especially ; the parting w^ith them would 
be very hard, were it not for the hope of a meeting 
beyond, when our work is all clone. 

" They also presented Kohar with a silver pen- 
holder, prettily inscribed, and she made a speech in 
return. I then invited them to come, with their 
companions, to the reunion in the school-room that 
evening. Finding that there would be no social 
gathering of graduates this year, I concluded to 
attempt a general 'sociable' myself. Removing 
the desks, &c, from the school-room, and spread- 
ing carpets and rugs, quite changed its appearance. 
Mr. Allen's melocleon was brought down, and 
placed near one of the posts in the center, a row 
of chairs was left around the wall, two or three 
small tables in the corners, and lamps hung on the 
posts and walls, and our arrangements were com- 
plete. The recitation-room was also fitted up for 
use if necessary. 

"We procured a liberal supply of bread and 
grapes, Pilibos made a large quantity of cookies, 



214 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

such as they like, and others sent native sweets, or 
sugars and nuts. A cup of tea, sweetened in boil- 
ing, and without milk, finished our entertainment. 
The guests came early, just after sunset, at the 
ringing of the chapel bell. The students of both 
schools, Arabs, Koords, and all, married and un- 
married ! # pastors, preachers who were in the city, 
and their wives, besides two or three others con- 
nected with our scholars, — these, with the mission- 
ary families, made up a company of about one hun- 
dred and eighty souls. Music was the principal 
entertainment of the evening. We sang most of the 
new songs which all so much admire, — 6 Love at 
home,' 4 Come, come away,' &c. &c, also a few of 
the old ones which were called for. There was no 
formality. All seemed at home, and there was 
plenty of pleasant conversation among all present, 
but nothing rude or boisterous. It pleased me 
much to see our dear new sisters, 'Hattie and 
Mary,' f mingling with the crowd, who sat on the 
floor, and endeavoring to talk with them. I saw 

* Why this exclamation point ? Because to allow unmarried men, 
even theological students, thus to meet the girls of the female sem- 
inary, is a thing so unusual in the Orient as to call for a mark of 
■ " wonder and surprise." 

f Misses Seymour and Warfield. 



HARPOOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 



215 



Marine lightly touch Pastor Mardiros, of Malatia, 
and heard her say to Miss Seymour, 4 This is my 
pastor? That look and word had a whole ser- 
mon in it to my mind. It spoke volumes for the 
endearing relation of pastor and people. 

" I saw Mr. Williams, who entered most heartily 
into the spirit of the evening, trying to converse 
with Baron Simon, of Bitlis. He asked me to 
ask him how he thought he would enjoy that rela- 
tion, # and when the good man said he had been 
thinking much since he came here, and he felt now 
that it was the will of God, and he should hold 
out no longer, Mr. Williams exclaimed, 'Glory 
to God! ' and through me said to him, 4 There is no 
more blessed work on earth than that of a loving 
and beloved pastor of a loving people. Your 
beard is still black ; you may yet bring hundreds of 
souls into the kingdom. 5 In the course of the even- 
ing, 4 Come to Jesus 5 was sung by the six Koords 
supported by the 4 Union.' Soon the Arabic stu- 

* It will be remembered that Baron Simon knows only Armenian 
and Turkish, while Mr. Williams uses Arabic. Baron Simon had, 
previous to this visit to Harpoot, refused to become pastor of the 
church in Bitlis, and it was this new resolution which gave Mr. Wil- 
liams so much joy. Some of the native pastors of Harpoot returned 
with him to B- — - and put him into the pastorate. 



216 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



dents joined in, with Mr. Williams, in Arabic, then 
the Armenians in their tongue, and so on, till we 
were all singing in five languages ! * 

" Pastor Mardiros, of Malatia, closed the evening 
with devotional exercises, directing our thoughts 
to the great company of the redeemed, by a chap- 
ter of Revelation. He said he could think of noth- 
ing but heaven all the evening ; and, in a few 
words, he caused us to look forward to that reun- 
ion in the presence of our Lord and Master. We 
sang 'Joyfully, joyfully onward we move,' and then 
united with him in prayer. It was only half-past 
ten when all had departed. As each one left, they 
came to me, and with a cordial grasp of the hand 
thanked me for the pleasure they had enjoyed. 
Their faces showed that it was genuine. Eva said 
it had been c a sweet evening ; 5 our Pastor Mardi- 
ros said afterwards, ' It was a delightful scene ; ' 
and others remarked that it was the pleasantest 
evening they ever enjoyed ; they should never for- 
get it. Our missionaries voted it a \ success ; ' and I 

* The "Koords" are the Koordish-speaking Armenians and 
Syrians, whom the churches are supporting and educating to be their 
missionaries in Koordistan. The five languages were Armenian, 
Arabic, Koordish, English, and Turkish, the last being used by Mr. 
II. N. Barnum. 



HARPOOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 



217 



was more than satisfied, so happy that I did not 
sleep all night for very joy ! Sabbath day was 
most blessed. The anniversary sermon by Pastor 
Hagop of Hulakegh was good, and full of the apos- 
tolic spirit. It was a precious communion season 
that afternoon. 

" I was much impressed with the closing prayer 
by Baron Simon. He prayed that they might all 
c grow gray in the service of Christ, bearing hard- 
ness like good soldiers.' 

" Monday there was a constant succession of call- 
ers to bid good-bye. In the afternoon, three of 
the pastors came to my room, with one or two 
laymen, to examine five of our girls for admission 
to the church. 

" The examination was most thorough and test- 
ing. Baron Simon had been anxious that Loosin- 
tak should be examined here, where she had pro- 
fessed to meet with a change of heart, and others 
wished to be examined with her, — Marta, Manoosh, 
Mariam, of Maden, and Heropsima, of Malatia. I 
was much gratified with the appearance of the 
girls, and I doubt if the pastors ever before re- 
ceived so intelligent and prompt replies from this 
class of candidates. They seemed quite touched 



218 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

by their answers in two or three instances. Marta, 
especially, has wonderfully changed since you saw 
her. Her mind has undergone a transformation by 
the working of the Holy Spirit. I can attribute to 
nothing else such a waking up of intellect. They 
pressed her much to know why she was so anxious 
to go and labor in distant and dark regions ; why 
she could not work for Christ in Arabkir. At last 
she could say no more, she had gone as far as she 
could properly ; then Mariam said, very discreetly, 
4 Malta's reason is one she can not well state; she 
has seen other girls there turned aside from the 
work, and she fears it will be the same with her, 
if she goes home to labor.' This sent a few quiet 
drops from Marta's eyes. The pastors looked 
very sympathizing, and said, 4 Ah, we understand 
it.' Strangely enough, I had failed to see her dif- 
ficulty, and helped probe her all the closer, not 
thinking of the danger of their marrying her to 
somebody in common life. Have I told you of a 
pleasant little conversation with Loosintak ? I was 
talking with her one day of her future. After a 
pause, she timidly said, 4 It is a joy to think I shall 
meet you in heaven. Last Sabbath Marta and I 
were talking, and she said, c If you or I should die, 



HARPOOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 



219 



and go to heaven before Miss West does, we will 
go and find her mother,^ and say, Your daughter 
led us to Christ.' Her eyes filled as she spoke. 
This bit of comfort seemed so direct from the Lord 
that it quite touched my heart." 

* Miss "WVs mother died May 23, 1867, aged seventy-six. An obitu 
ary notice of her was given in the Missionary Herald for August, 



1867. 



15 




220 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



MISSIONARY PREMISES IN HARPOOT. 

This sketch represents the eastern portion of the missionary 
premises in Harpoot, as seen from the south, the buildings in 
front, as seen in the sketch at the close of chapter second, being 
unrepresented. With the exception of a portion on the right, these 
buildings were not erected by us, but bought from an Armenian, 
who, like some in this land, having a sudden run of prosperity, 
built a bigger house than he could support, and then sold it for 
two thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, which was probably 
less than half its cost. The upper story of the large building is 
divided into three parts, Mr. Allen occupying the left, I the mid- 
dle, and the teachers of the female seminary the right, while 
the lower story is devoted to the pupils. The room on the ex- 
treme right, over the gate, is a Bible depository, — now in pro- 
cess of building, — and the laden donkey issuing from the front 
gate is supposed to be the one mentioned on page 242. 

At the left is seen a stable, between which and the house is the 
play-yard of the seminary pupils. The walled and terraced 
space in the rear of the buildings, though dignified with the 
name of 44 garden," is, with the exception of the few trees which 
are kept alive by a weekly goatskin bottle of water in the rainless 
summer, a mere rocky, gravely waste, as are all the mountain- 
tops and sides. 

Upon the hill-top in the rear is seen a part of a Turkish ceme- 
tery, which extends far to the north and east, covering many 
hundreds of acres. Indeed, the city is nearly encircled by these 
graveyards, which, during the many centuries since Harpoot 
began to be, have received to their often re-opened graves the 
successive generations of its population. 



HARP GOT FEMALE SEMINARY. 



221 



Upon the outside of the roof of the large house is seen a sort 
of railing, or "battlement," such as God bade the Israelites 
build around their houses. Deut. xxii. 8. Persons sometimes 
fall from the roofs which have no such protection, and die. We 
can see how readily one can, like Peter (Acts x. 9), go upon the 
house-top to pray. The " battlement " upon one side of this 
house is of boards, and so close and high as to form a place of 
real retirement, where, in the heat of summer, we sometimes 
sleep at night. The house is built upon the mountain-side, by 
digging into it, so that while the front portion of the roof is 
some thirty feet above the road, the back portion is level with 
the terrace of the 44 garden." 

Just to the right of the female seminary is the outer gate, or 
door, of the house-yard ; such a one, perhaps, as in Acts xii. 13 
is called the 44 door of the gate." Sometimes these outer gates 
have inserted in them a smaller door, through which a single 
person may pass without opening the larger and heavier gate, 
which must of course be opened for beasts of burden. Some 
say that one of the gates of Jerusalem had such a small door 
inserted in or by it, called the 44 needle's eye," and that to this 
the Saviour referred when he said, 44 It is easier for a camel to 
go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter into the 
kingdom of God. ' ' Luke xviii. 25. 



• 



CHAPTER IX. 

FRUITS. 

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth ; it shall 
not return unto me void. — Is a. Iv. 11. 

B have thus far looked chiefly at the 
work to be done, and the means and 
^Jp\$ mode of doing it. We come now to 
Uq) the question of results. What has been 
the effect of these various methods of present- 
ing divine truth to the ignorant and supersti- 
tious population of this mission-field ? 

And first, among the Mohammedans, who are 
the Arabs, the Koords, and the Turks. Among 
the first no work has been done, and among 
the second little besides calling their attention 
to the Christian system, and, among that por- 
tion of them known as Kuzzlebashes, awaken- 
ing a spirit of intellectual inquiry, which will 

in the end lead to good results, but is so per- 

222 




FRUITS. 



223 



verted by their pantheistic notions as to prom- 
ise little immediate good. 

Much greater benefit has been conferred upon 
the Turks of the district. Many copies of the 
Scriptures have been sold to them, by the read- 
ing of which, as well as by listening occasion- 
ally to preaching, and oftener still to informal 
talk upon Christian doctrine, but especially by 
their seeing real Christianity illustrated in the 
worship and the lives of its Protestant profes- 
sors, the mass of them have been intellectually 
enlightened, and now look upon the Christian 
system with feelings far different from those 
cherished years ago. By this, as well as by 
the softening, enervating influence of age upon 
Mohammedanism itself, the old spirit of fanati- 
cism has largely departed. Here and there 
among them a man avows a belief of Chris- 
tianity, which, however, he fails to prove sin- 
cere by a Christian life ; while very many of 
them despairingly anticipate the day when the 
crescent shall give place to the cross, consoling 
themselves with the hope that with their faith 
will also pass away those political evils and 



224 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES, 



burdens, which they ignorantly attribute to the 
sultan and his ministers, instead of the people, 
of whose character such rulers are the only fit- 
ting representatives. 

The chief " results " have been among the 
nominal Christians, mainly the Armenians, of 
whom mention was made in chapter second. 
Some of these results have been already inci- 
dentally mentioned, such as waking up popular 
feeling in favor of education, both among those 
who adhere to the missionaries and are called 
Protestants, and those who do not. 

One effect of the intellectual awakening, fol- 
lowed as it is so largely by studying the Bible, 
has been to bring the priesthood into contempt. 
The influence they formerly had over the su- 
perstitious people, so that the fear of being 
cursed by a priest was sufficient to turn multi- 
tudes away from seeking the truth, is now 
comparatively unknown. As a result of this, 
the swarms of priests who formerly preyed 
upon and domineered over the people are fast 
passing away. In Harpoot city and its fifty- 
four out-stations, in which years ago were two 



FRUITS. 



225 



hundred and fifty-six priests, there are at pres- 
ent but one hundred and forty-five. It is now 
difficult to persuade any except the lowest of 
the people to become priests. It is a common 
feeling that the influence and honor of the 
office have departed. The woman who was 
spoken of in the last chapter, as offering to 
give her daughter in marriage to a Protestant, 
has a son-in-law in a village near, who was 
about to be ordained as priest. When her 
consent was asked, she made inquiry, and, 
learning that a Protestant teacher had gone 
there, said, u Then all the people will become 
Protestants. Why should he be a priest to be 
left alone ? " In earlier days, she might have 
hoped that he too would turn Protestant, and 
be employed as a missionary helper, but our 
rule not to employ priests, however soundly 
converted, is well known. 

Another effect of this awakened public spirit 
is to cut off the support of the Armenian mo- 
nasteries, with which the country is filled, no 
less than thirteen being in the Harpoot field. 



226 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



But their revenues, and with them their glory 
and power, are passing away. 

The monastery of Hulakegh, which formerly 
collected upwards of three hundred measures 
of wheat from that village and Bizmishen, ob- 
tained, in 1866, but eighteen measures ; and 
from some monasteries the crowd of hungry 
" vartabeds" * have departed elsewhere for food. 

It is a fact of interest that while, at one 
time, in Harpoot and its fifty-four out-stations 
there were nine hundred and fifty-three fami- 
lies of Armenian papists, there are now but 
two hundred and thirty-three. The word of 
God has proved too strong for the man of sin, 
backed, as he has been, by the influence of a 
French consul. In Harpoot city, where at one 
time they made a great show, there is not now 
a papist. 

But a more encouraging result of this intel- 
lectual awakening is seen in the public feel- 
ing of the community in regard to preaching. 
Formerly, anybody who could talk was accept- 



* An order of unmarried ecclesiastics. 
once, for so they interpret 1 Tim. iii. 2. 



The priests marry, but only 



FRUITS. 



•227 



able alike in Armenian church and Protestant 
chapel, whether he talked sense or nonsense. 
It was to us, at one time, a painful question 
what to do to cure the people of the notion 
that any sort of a man with a tongue would do 
for a preacher. The popular prejudice was as 
inveterate as its twin feeling on the part of 
some in the churches at home, — that almost 
anybody will do for a foreign missionary. The 
opening of the theological seminary made the 
impression among the Protestants that preach- 
ers should come from that. But to have en- 
tered its doors was enough, just as with some 
more intelligent communities the D. D. at- 
tached to a man's name is sometimes a suffi- 
cient guarantee to give weight to wordy empti- 
ness. A very feeble but good brother from 
Perchenj having been received, one who had 
not previously been able even to lead a prayer- 
meeting, we were amused by a special request 
that he should come the first Sabbath and oc- 
cupy their pulpit. They wished to see the 
wonderful change which a few lessons in the 
seminary had made in him. 



228 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

But all that is changed now. By degrees 
the more intelligent, discerning people of the 
villages began to distinguish between the mem- 
bers of the junior and the senior classes, and, 
in applying for men, to say, " Send us a sen- 
ior, if you please ; " adding sometimes, " Our 
people are becoming critical. They say that 
the man you sent us last week couldn't preach." 

Later still, they began to discern the differ- 
ence between members of the same class, and 
now many of them are as sharp critics on ser- 
mons and preachers as congregations here in 
New England, only in a different way from 
some of them. No amount of ability and elo- 
quence will suffice, if the preacher fail to im- 
part clearly some thought from the Bible worth 
carrying home, and in such a form that they 
can carry it. 

We had purposely endeavored, as far as we 
dared, to awaken this popular feeling, in order 
to use it as a spur to quicken the steps of 
oriental indolence and inertia in the seminary. 
The people are now in danger of passing the 
goal, and we have begun to put on the brakes, 



FRUITS. 



229 



or rather the Master is doing it, in a way which 
is mentioned in chapter tenth, in speaking of 
Hooeli. Another good result has been secured, 
in an increasing demand, on the part of the 
Armenians, that the gospel in their spoken 
tongue should be read and preached in their 
churches ; and, in thirty-three of these, either 
regular or occasional services have been held, 
aside from the established church service. 

But this influence of reading and Bible study 
lias not been merely intellectual, — under which 
name I might mention an increasing spirit of 
awakened enterprise, rousing the people from 
their condition of sluggishness, and urging 
them on in the path of civilization. It has 
also been moral, and has done much to elevate 
the standard of morality among the people at 
large. In Aghansi, a Turkish and Armenian 
village, a Turk asked in surprise what had hap- 
pened to three profane, quarrelsome women, 
that he heard their profanity and wrangling no 
more. He understood the cause, when told 
that a Protestant helper had come with the 
Bible a few weeks before. The same influence 



230 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



has told so powerfully upon popular sentiment 
that to lie or cheat is sufficient now to make 
the detected man blush, which was not the 
case years ago. 

The cause of temperance too is advanced. 
Those who take the Bible as their guide at 
once leave off wine-drinking, and that without 
any special instruction from us. 

Another effect which appears on every hand, 
but specially among those who are called Pro- 
testants, is the elevation of woman from a con- 
dition little better than slavery, to her true 
place as the loved and honored companion of 
her husband. Pages might be filled witli 
statements and incidents illustrating the grad- 
ual process by which this civilizing, elevating 
* work goes on among both sexes. Never shall 
I forget the amazement manifested by the peo- 
ple when first seeing the respect shown by the 
missionaries to our wives. " What, a woman 
enter a door before a man ! " 

Then, convinced that our ladies deserved the 
honor shown them, they lamented their own 
hard lot in not having such wives. "How 



FRUITS. 



231 



happens it," said a man to me one day, " that 
all the missionaries' wives are angels ? " But 
now some of them have angels too for com- 
panions. 

Step by step have the wives risen in intelli- 
gence and worth, and step by step have the 
husbands too advanced, till there are many 
family circles where mutual respect and love 
make the twain really one flesh. 

But all these results are merely incidental 
to the one great aim of bringing men to Christ, 
and organizing Christian churches. It is by 
this, by seeing the gospel become the savor of 
life unto life to scores and hundreds, that our 
hearts have been made truly glad, In Harpoot 
city and its fifty-four out-stations, during the 
winter of 1866-67, usually about four thousand 
persons heard the gospel on the Sabbath, and, 
including one hundred and sixty-nine members 
of the seven churches previously spoken of as 
put in our charge by the enlargement of our 
mission-field, there were, in April, 1867, thir- 
teen churches, with four hundred and three 
members, and nearly three hundred other hope- 



232 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

ful Christians, waiting to be received to exist- 
ing churches, or to be organized into new ones.* 
About two hundred of these last were new con- 
verts, fruits of a revival with which several 
communities were blessed in the winter of 
1866-67. 

Of the eleven pastors of these churches, six 
are wholly supported by their own people. 
The two churches formed in 1867 receive aid 
from us equal to half of their pastor's salary, 
and the other three a less amount. While, 
however, the total salary of these eleven pas- 
tors amounts to but about $1300, the churches 
and congregations paid, during the year 1866, 
for support of pastors, chapels, schools, mis- 
sionary work, etc., $3,969, in gold. 

The work of forming churches, which we did 
not begin till 1864, will now go on more rap- 
idly, and it is hoped that, within the coming 
year, six others will be organized, one of which 
will assume the entire support of its pastor 
from the first. Notwithstanding our rule, 

* It will be borne in mind that this does not include the churches 
in Diarbekir, Mardin, and other places outside of the Harpoot field. 



FRUITS. 233 

■ 

allowing us, when necessary, to aid a church 
in a decreasing ratio for five yeai^s, all of those 
formed by us previous to 1887 now pay all 
their own expenses, including schools. 

It may be interesting to take a glance at 
some of the places where churches are soon to 
be formed. The first is in the eastern part of 
Harpoot city, where already a chapel has been 
built, the people paying four hundred and forty- 
one dollars of the seven hundred and twenty 
dollars expense. A separate service is sus- 
tained here with the hope of soon forming a 
second church and settling a pastor. 

In Geghi Kasabah, among the mountains, 
four days' journey north-east from Harpoot, a 
man named Sarkis years ago became possessed 
of a Testament, which he then could not read, 
but had some one read it to him. The book 
was taken away and burned, and Sarkis cast 
into prison. But a fire was kindled which 
could not be put out. In 1858, we visited the 
place, and found a little company of sixteen 
men bold enough to call themselves our friends. 
It was to them and others, that, at a later day^ 



234 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



the sermon on lying spoken of in chapter sixth 
was preached ; and now we hope that enough 
persons have been converted, and learned to 
watch against their besetting sin, to form a 
„ church. A graduate of the seminary in 1867, 
a " first-class " man, one who was much sought 
after, and had a call to Husenik, his native 
village, chose to accept a call from this wild 
region, because there he can bear more hard- 
ships for Christ, and he feared that it might be 
difficult to find a man able and willing to go. 
The little company of believers are sorely per- 
secuted by both Armenians and Turks, but we 
hope that, with such a leader, they will have 
much of the martyr spirit, and be a bright 
light in the midst of those mountains. 

Two days' journey east from Harpoot, on the 
northern bank of the Euphrates, is Palu, also 
in the midst of a wild region. Here the twelve 
women mentioned in chapter fifth were whipped 
into reading, and some of them are zealous 
workers for Christ. We hope that of the 
eighty persons who usually attend meetings 
there, twelve are Christians. A young gradu- 



FRUITS. 



235 



ate of the seminary has just gone there as a 
candidate, and, if a certain Diotrephes, named 
Stepan, does not get the desired pre-eminence, 
we hope he will be settled as pastor. 

Some fifty miles south from Harpoot, in the 
Taurus Mountains, is Choonkoosh, a city of 
some six thousand inhabitants, Turks and Ar- 
menians. I made my first visit there in 1857, 
with Mr. Dunmore, when, after several hours' 
effort, and by the aid of the Turkish governor, 
we secured a lodging-place, only to be driven 
out by a wild mob composed largely of women.* 
When they had thrust us out into the rain and 
pitchy darkness, the Xanthippe who owned the 
house consented to let us go back on two con- 
ditions : (1.) That we should accept a meaner 
room ; (2.) That we should leave at daylight. 
We consented, and ere we could see the day- 
light, her shrill cry, " Up, and begone ! " woke 

* Probably most readers of Acts xiii. 50 do not think why the 
Jews stirred up the " devout and honorable women " against Paul 
and Barnabas. No doubt then, as now, it was because they hoped 
that ivomen would escape punishment for an act which men could 
not safely do. 

A mob of devout women stirred up by their husbands, for this 
reason, once gave me a good stoning in the city of Harpoot. 



236 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

us from sleep, and sent us forth to seek a new 
place for that Sabbath's rest. The wild people 
seemed ready to kill us, and the next day we 
left. The following year we sent out a helper 
there, but a mob drove him from the place, and 
he was put back and retained there only by the 
pasha's power. Many copies of the Scriptures 
were sold, and the good seed took root. When, 
in the autumn of 1866, we missionaries, with 
the members of the Harpoot Evangelical Union, 
took this route to Diarbekir, what a different 
scene met our eyes ! In place of a mob of wo- 
men to drive us out, urged on by a fierce crowd 
of men, the " brethren " led us to a prominent 
three-story building, which, with its massive 
walls of stone three feet thick, and bound to- 
gether by timber, seemed built to stand for ever. 
It was erected upon the mountain-side, and had 
less room in the lower story ; but in that was 
a stable, and a school-room for one hundred 
children. The second story was divided into 
rooms for a pastor, and in the upper story was 
a room to seat five hundred or more persons. 
Around the walls were standing ladders with a 



fruits. 



237 



pile of mud at the foot of each, and a woman 
making little balls and rapidly tossing them up 
to another woman at the top of the ladder, 
who quickly spread them on the wall for 
plastering. And this was a women's plas- 
tering-bee, for the more speedy completion of 
the chapel, that the missionaries might preach 
to them. The stone and timber they and their 
husbands had brought, the latter from a long 
distance ; and, with four hundred dollars aid 
from us, had erected a building which would 
cost probably fifteen hundred dollars. Of the 
two hundred and eighty persons who are 
usually present at meetings there, we trust 
that at least fifteen are real Christians, and 
these we hope ere long to see organized into a 
church with a pastor of their own, whom all 
the congregation will aid in supporting. 

I say, 4 * We hope to see a church organ- 
ized," for, in accordance with the principle 
that the churches are to manage their own 
affairs, they, by their pastors and delegates, 
met in Harpoot, Oct. 17th, 1865, to consult to- 
gether about some form of ecclesiastical union. 



238 • TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

With a spirit of manly earnestness and of 
Christian feeling which surprised and gratified 
us, they, after much prayer and consultation, 
adopted a constitution, of which the following 
is a translation : — 

"We thank God that evangelical churches have 
been planted in this land by the missionaries of 
the American Board ; and, though it is the right 
of the missionaries still to prosecute their special 
work independently, and we still need their aid, 
yet, feeling that it is the duty of the native pastors 
and churches to undertake this work themselves, 
and knowing that this can be done only by united 
action, we, therefore, the pastors and churches of 
the Harpoot pashalic, agree to form a union by 
adopting the following — 

CONSTITUTION. 

I. The name of this body shall be the Evangel- 
ical Union of Harpoot. 

IX. Those evangelical churches and pastors that 
give their assent to its rules may be members of 
the Union. 

III. Its meetings shall be composed of the pas- 
tors and one delegate from each church. Mission- 



FRUITS. 



239 



aries of the American Board, pastors from other 
places, and licensed preachers within our own 
bounds, may be members without the right of vot- 
ing ; but no one shall be a member who does not 
unhesitatingly receive all the teachings of the 
Bible, and specially those fundamental doctrines 
which are briefly expressed in the Assembly's 
Shorter Catechism. 

IV. To attain the object of our Union we will 
strive (a.) To promote the soundness of faith, 
peace, purity, activity, and increase of all the 
churches, (b.) To plant new churches in places 
where desirable, (c.) To seek out, educate, and set 
apart to their work, men suited to be pastors, 
preachers, or teachers, and, (d.) To unite all the 
churches in a strong bond of Christian fellowship, 
and in earnest and self-denying efforts to extend 
the kingdom of Christ, and especially, 1. By giv- 
their sons and daughters to the work of Christ 
wherever needed. 2. By aiding to support poor 
persons preparing to labor for Christ. 3. By aiding 
feeble churches to support their pastors and teach- 
ers. 4. By supporting preachers and teachers in 
unevangelized places. 5. By erecting suitable 
chapels and school-houses wherever needed. 6. By 



240 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

establishing, in all the cities and villages of our 
bounds, good schools, whose chief object shall be 
to make their pupils intelligent students of the 
Bible ; and, 7. By supplying every person with 
the entire Bible, and inducing him to study it. 

V. It shall be the duty of the Union to deprive 
unworthy pastors or preachers of their office ; and, 
when it is exceedingly necessary, a pastor may be 
dismissed with honor from his connection with one 
church to be the pastor of another. Whenever 
any members of a church appeal to the Union 
against any decision of their church, their appeal 
must be made known to the President in writing 
at least a month before its consideration, that he 
may make it known to the members. 

VI. There shall be one regular meeting some- 
time during the autumn of each year, and with 
the approval of two churches the President can 
call a special meeting at any time. Not less than 
five members shall be a quorum in any meeting. 

VII. The officers of the Union shall be a Pres- 
ident, a Scribe, a Treasurer, and an Examining 
Committee of three, who shall be chosen annually 
by ballot. 

VIII. The President shall preside in the meet- 



FRUITS. 241 

ings, and in his absence another shall be chosen to 
take his place. The Scribe shall keep a record of 
all the doings of the Union. The Treasurer shall 
once a year make a written report of all receipts 
and expenditures. The Examining Committee, or 
one of their number, shall once a year visit each 
one of the churches and report their condition to 
the Union. When a church are in faulty it shall be 
the duty of the Union to try to bring them to re- 
pentance ; and any church which shall fail to heed 
such efforts shall be expelled from the body." 

Articles ninth and tenth I omit as not of 
interest to the reader. It will be seen that 
here is a pretty extended plan of Christian 
work to be done,— Bible distribution, an educa- 
tion society in the largest sense of the name, 
home and foreign missions, and church erec- 
tion. And upon all these labors they have en- 
tered with greater or less zeal and effect. 

I have already spoken of our early throwing 
the care and expense of schools upon the peo- 
ple. They are doing nobly in assuming them, 
and are beginning to do something in support- 
ing poor men preparing for the ministry, 



242 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



Church erection is entirely in their hands, 
we only giving " grants in aid " where we 
think the people need them. They take the 
entire responsibility and build, we giving a 
fixed amount, which is usually not more than 
from one-fourth to one-third of the estimated 
expense. 

Not only every church, but every community 
also where there is no church, has a Bible so- 
ciety, which buys from us at wholesale, at 
twenty per cent, discount from the retail price. 
The books are carried from the city depository 
in bags on the backs of donkeys, which, in win- 
ter, are often seen standing at the missionary's 
door. 64 Has your donkey given out?" or, 
" Why don't you feed your donkey ? " is the 
phrase for stirring up a negligent Bible society, 
and one well understood, and, I am sorry to say, 
too often called into use, though twenty-two 
hundred and fifty dollars' worth, in gold, were 
sold from the depository in 1866. 

The home missionary work is largely done 
by the personal efforts of individuals, who go 
singly, or two and two, from each community 



FRUITS. 



243 



to neighboring villages, especially on the Sab- 
bath, to read the Bible and explain its contents 
to any who are willing to hear. At times, dur- 
ing the winter, persons spend days and weeks 
in thus going from place to place as unpaid 
laborers for Christ, except as the Master pays 
them ; and it is chiefly by such efforts that gos- 
pel light has been so generally shed abroad in 
the region of Harpoot. At one time, thirty-five 
members of the city community thus went 
abroad, some of them spending weeks, and go- 
ing to places three days' journey distant. 
When asked to do so, we furnish a horse or 
donkey for such persons to ride. Harpoot city 
church has furnished twenty-four men for 
Christian work permanently, of whom two are 
pastors, five licensed preachers, and seven stu- 
dents in the seminary ; three have died in the 
service, and the rest are employed as helpers 
and teachers. 

The women, too, do their part as they are 
able. One woman deserves particular mention. * 
She is connected with a circle of wealthy friends 
in the city, and was so bitter an enemy to the 



244 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

truth, or rather the delusions of the Protestants, 
as she supposed, that she threatened to burn 
her husband's Bible if he brought it home from 
his place of business, which he did not dare to 
do. He came begging the missionary ladies to 
call upon his wife, saying, " I know she will be 
pleased with the honor of a call from you, and 
perhaps you can persuade her to learn to read." 
They called, and, to their surprise, she con- 
sented to have a favorite teacher, the " Union 
teacher," Garabed, spoken of at the close of 
chapter seventh, come to her house and give 
her lessons. In a few weeks she could read 
intelligently, and the scales fell from her eyes. 
She at once took up the cross of shame and 
came to the Protestant chapel, and became a 
Christian before her husband, who is the man 
mentioned in chapter third as desiring a cheap 
religion. Though in feeble health, she is an 
earnest and very efficient laborer, and often 
goes to villages from three to ten miles distant 
to hold meetings among the women, whom she 
has remarkable skill and success in persuading 
to accept the truth. 



FRUITS. 245 

The so-called " foreign missionary work," as 
undertaken, is to be done in the central por- 
tions of Koordistan, in a district extending 
from four to twenty days' journey to the south- 
east from Harpoot. In this work they are 
united with the churches of Diarbekir and 
Mardin. The language of the district is mostly 
Koormangie Koordish, which none of the peo- 
ple of Harpoot, and but a few of those of Diar- 
bekir, know. In the autumn of 1866, it was 
my privilege, with Messrs. Allen and Williams, 
and some members of the " Evangelical Union," 
to spend a month in touring in those wild re- 
gions, and to see the condition of deep degrada- 
tion of the mingled mass of Armenians, Koords, 
Turks, and Yezidees. 

The way in which the churches were led to 
undertake this work was strikingly providential. 
Into a meeting of the Union, held in Diarbekir, 
strayed a young man who knew but a few 
words of Armenian, but the pastor of the 
Harpoot church was born and had lived in 
Koordistan, and knew the language perfectly. 
The young man's story, as given to him, and 



246 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



afterward proved to be true, was that a man in 
Red wan, some four days' journey to the east, 
had given him money to come to the west and 
find, if he could, the men who teach the gospel, 
and gain a knowledge of it, and return and 
teach his countrymen. 

The pastors and delegates present at once 
decided to adopt him as a beneficiary of their 
churches. The American churches had, they 
said, sent the gospel to them, and it was their 
duty to give it to these perishing ones. Three 
other men were found, and at once taken to 
Harpoot to be educated under the care of the 
city pastor, whose early knowledge of the Koor- 
dish was thus made of use. As a result of his 
earnest labors in teaching them Christian doc- 
trine, the four were hopefully converted during 
the precious revival which followed. Never 
have I been in a more interesting monthly 
concert than was that in Harpoot, when these 
four men rose in turn, and, in their native 
Koordish, translated by the pastor, told of their 
own and their people's wretched condition, and 
begged the prayers of God's people. Two 



FRUITS. 



247 



others have been added to their number, and 
with them, and the wives and children of the 
married ones, and a few other persons who 
know the Koordish, a meeting, probably the 
first ever held in that tongue, was recently held, 
in which not only the prayers and the remarks, 
but also the Scripture reading and the hymns, 
were in Koordish, the last having been trans- 
lated from the Armenian by one of their num- 
ber, who has learned enough of that language 
to do it. The little boys of Mr. Walker's con- 
gregation in Diarbekir, too impatient to wait 
for these men to be educated to go, themselves 
selected a man, put their pennies together to 
support him, and sent him to Reclwan to preach 
the gospel to the Armenian, Assyrian, Turkish, 
and Yezidee population of that wretched town. 

I anticipate it as my own richest source of 
future joy in the missionary work to learn the 
Koordish tongue, and lead on to the regions 
beyond these foreign missionaries of the newly- 
planted churches. 



CHAPTER X. 



TITHE-GIVING — RE VIVAL. 

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat 
in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, 
if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a 
blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. — Mal. 
iii. 10. 




HAVE already spoken, in chapter third, 
of the obstacles which the covetousness 



^jjp of the people, and their false ideas of the 
missionary work, threw in the way of ef- 
forts to make the churches self-supporting, and 
of our unyielding purpose to carry on the cam- 
paign from this base, accepting no man as a 
convert, and especially no one as a helper in 
the missionary work, who did not seem to ad- 
here to Christ instead of us, and to be ready to 
make effort and sacrifice for him. A single 
illustration of the way in which the professed 
desire of a community for the gospel was some- 

248 



TITHE-GIVING — RE VITAL. 



249 



times tested will put the principle in a clearer 
light. Some twelve miles south from Harpoot, 
but in full view of the city, upon the face of 
the Taurus range, is Hoh, a village with some 
eight hundred Armenian and eight hundred 
Turkish inhabitants. 

By much effort, during a vacation of the 
seminary some years ago, we succeeded in rent- 
ing a room and locating a student there for the 
winter. The only apparent result of his four 
months' labor was a softening of the prejudices 
of the people, teaching a few persons to read, 
and selling a few copies of the Scriptures. The 
following winter we did not occupy the place, 
but those copies of the Scriptures were doing 
their work, and the succeeding year a man 
came to ask that some one might come to " ex- 
plain the Scriptures, as the student used to 
do." Accordingly, for several successive weeks, 
we sent a student on Saturday to spend the 
Sabbath there, and return on Monday to his 
studies. But, as they left him to pay ten cents 
each time for his donkey's barley, we stopped 
his going, when again some of the people came 



250 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



to inquire why their preacher didn't come. 
" You wish him to come," said we, " and com- 
pel him to pay for his donkey's food ! M " If 
that is all, we will give it,." they replied ; and 
the preacher resumed his visits. As the time 
for the student's graduation approached, they 
applied to have him come and remain with 
them. " We would gladly have him do so," 
we replied, " but he can not remain in the 
street." They provided a room at their own 
expense, and he took up his abode with them. 
A few weeks later, the people of another place 
came for a preacher. " There is a hungry one 
in Hoh, whom you can have," we replied. 
They went to call him, and he came to Har- 
poot with some of his parishioners, who in- 
quired why we were taking away their preach- 
er. " You are sending him away," we replied. 
To their surprised inquiry, " How ? " we an- 
swered, " You have starved him out. Why 
don't you give him something to eat ? " We 
were thinking of doing it," they replied, " and 
will pay him twenty piasters (eighty cents) a 
month." He returned with them, and had re- 



Tl THE- GI VING — 



RE VIVAL. 



251 



mained about a year, when he notified us that 
their share of his salary was two months in 
arrear, and that they said, that, owing to the 
absence of some of their number, they could 
pay only two hundred instead of two hundred 
and forty piasters during the ensuing year. A 
brief note directing him to come to Harpoot 
secured the prompt payment of the sum due, 
and the promise of the two hundred and forty pi- 
asters. They then made up a subscription for 
two thousand piasters, and requested from us 
a " grant in aid" of the erection of a chapel 
and parsonage. 

Thus, during the early stages of the work 
in Hoh, we disciplined them to honesty and 
promptness in dealing with their preacher. 
Might not some parishes in this land, some, too, 
of which single members could buy out any of 
our oriental communities entire, profitably be 
subjected to the same discipline ? 

Thus we put the gospel upon its own merits 
with its professed friends, always so conducting 
as to make them feel that the truth is sent from 
God to them, and that, if they receive it, they 

17 



252 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

do so for themselves and their children, and 
not for the missionaries and American Chris- 
tians. 

But it remained for a poor blind graduate of 
the seminary to strike the blow which bids fair 
to set many free from this bondage to selfish- 
ness and covetousness, and enrich them with 
the blessing which God bestows on the cheerful 
giver. This young man, whose name is Ho- 
hannes, " John," is so ready in quoting Scrip- 
ture that he has been surnamed Hamapapar, 
" Concordance." 

In the north-western section of our mission- 
field, near the city of Arabkir, is Shepik, the 
village in which is that one of the " seven 
added churches" spoken of in chapter fourth, 
whose pastor was supported by missionary funds. 
When, soon after the annexation of the Arab- 
kir territory to our field, Mr. Barnum and I 
went to visit Shepik, and saw the deep poverty 
of the people, we exclaimed, " No wonder that 
during all these years the people have paid but 
two dollars and twenty cents to their pas- 
tor ! Here, at least, is one permanently pauper 



TI THE-iUVlNG RE VI VAL. 



253 



church." We raised a small subscription among 
the people, and, resolving not to support the 
church with the Board's funds, left them to get 
aid from sister churches, in which they suc- 
ceeded. But the pastor, who, previous to his 
conversion, had been one of that incurably 
sluggish and covetous race, the Armenian 
priesthood, did not get as much as he thought 
he needed, and came to us to complain. We 
referred him to the " Evangelical Union," then 
in session ; and a satisfaction it was to see the 
faithful, practical way in which they examined 
into the case, coming at last to the decision 
that his own want of energy had been the cause 
of his people's inactivity. They decided that 
he should leave them, and go as a missionary 
to a village near, where the opposition of the 
people would wake him up, and that " John 
Concordance " should take his place for a time. 

The blind preacher went, and, to the com- 
plaints of the people about poor crops and pov- 
erty, replied, " God tells you the reason, in the 
third chapter of Malachi, where he says, 6 Ye 
are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed 



254 TEN YEARS OX THE EUPHRATES. 

me.' " Then, taking for a text, " Bring ye all 
the tithes into the storehouse, that there may 
be meat in mine house, and prove me now 
herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not 
open you the windows of heaven, and pour you 
out a blessing, that there shall not be room 
enough to receive it," he began to preach the 
duty and privilege of setting apart at least a 
tenth of their earnings for God. He enforced 
the duty not as a Mosaic rule of action, but as 
something enjoined from the earliest times, and 
as of pre-eminently binding force on Christians. 
" Did not even Abraham pay tithes ? " he in- 
quired. " And if the Jews, with only their 
own home work to care for, besides expending 
so much for sacrifices, and in traveling to and 
from the temple, were obliged to pajr one-tenth 
to the Lord's treasury, Christians surely should 
do no less. Does not Jesus say that the Phari- 
sees ought not to ' leave undone ' the tithing 
of their herbs ? And does not the apostle say 
to the Corinthians, ' Upon the first day of the 
week let every one of you lay by him in store, 
as God has prospered him ' ? " He then called 



TITHE-GIVING — REVIVAL. 



255 



to mind the words of the Lord Jesus which the 
apostle exhorted the Ephesians to remember, 
u It is more blessed to give than to receive." 
Going on still further, he dwelt upon the sin 
of a Christian's sitting still and waiting for the 
collector to come and dun him for the amount 
due the Lord's treasury. 46 Don't you see," 
said he, u the command is, Bring ye all the 
tithes ? Why not bring your offerings of money 
to God as much as those of prayer and praise? " 

The blind man had seen the pith of the mat- 
ter better than we who had eyes, and his fitly- 
chosen words produced the desired result. In- 
cluding the family of the absent pastor, there 
were in the Protestant community eighty-two 
persons, old and young, of whom, including the 
pastor and his son, sixteen were adult males. 
But of these sixteen, two were wandering in 
distant parts, one was a blind beggar, and one 
a simpleton, leaving, besides the pastor and his 
son, ten adult males, six of whom, with ten fe- 
males, were members of the church. Most of 
them cultivate the soil, the owner of which ex- 
acts half of the crop for rent, and the govern- 



256 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



ment takes a tenth of the remainder for 

taxes.* 

They all gave another tenth to the Lord's 
66 storehouse," a room which they set apart to 
receive the tithes. Thither they bore one-tenth 
of ail which came to their hand, he who went 
to the city to labor for twenty cents a day 
bringing two for the Lord's portion. The man 
who caught fish from the neighboring stream 
sold one of ten for the Lord ; and even the 
blind old beggar brought a tenth of his gather- 
ings to the same depository. Enjoying this 
so much, they agreed to bring another tenth 
for building a chapel, and promptly paid the 
amount. But " John Concordance's " Bible 
knowledge failed in one point. It was no- 
where said that he should live from the tithes, 
and, forgetting to class himself with the Jewish 
consumers of tithes, he had left them in the 
" storehouse," and continued to receive an ad- 

* No one, who has not seen oriental poverty, can at all realize 
now very poor these people were. Most of the houses as well as 
lands belong to the Turkish owner ; and I think it may safely be said 
that all their property, including clothes and household utensils, 
would not exceed twenty-five hundred dollars in value. 



TITHE-GIVING — 



REVIVAL. 



257 



ditional sum from the people for his own support, 
and was at first much shocked at the idea that 
he should use the Lord's portion. Thus, during 
the year, that people paid in all one hundred 
and ninety-three dollars, in gold. The result 
was that they recalled their pastor, assuming 
his entire support, and, with aid from us, built 
a chapel and school-room, and a 44 storehouse," 
in which to deposit the Lord's tithes. Never 
have I seen happier men than they seemed to 
be in their poverty, self-denial, and liberality. 
In reply to one who said to them, 44 Now, of 
course, you are satisfied; you have paid God 
his tithes, and have nothing more to do," they 
replied, 44 Not so, indeed. All we have is his, 
and when he calls for all we must give it ; but 
we feel that now he calls for so much." 

In September, 1866, the Evangelical Union 
held a meeting in the city of Arabkir, and, 
hearing of the work in Shepik, went there for 
a day's meeting. To our surprise, the Arme- 
nians invited us to hold the meetings in their 
church. The forenoon session of four hours 
was spent in prayer, and discussing the ques- 



258 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



tion, " May we hope to see a general turning 
of sinners to Christ ; and what means shall we 
use to secure that object ? " 

It was not a mere discussion, but consider- 
able time was spent in prayer and singing,* 
and the Holy Spirit seemed to be present, fill- 
ing all hearts with something of the revival 
spirit. A brief sketch of the discussion from 
notes taken at the time may not be uninterest- 
ing. I give it much condensed ; leaving out re- 
marks made by the missionaries. 

The President of the Union, the Harpoot pas- 
tor, began by saying, — We may not only 
" hope," but be certain, that a revival will come 
if we seek it ; and, as one means to this end, 
we are ourselves to be awake, and to labor in 
earnest to turn sinners to Christ. 

Preacher from Holi. We must, by our own 
lives, convince sinners that there is a differ- 
ence between them and us. We must pray in 
secret, and in our preaching put ourselves 

* Never did " Sweet hour of prayer" sound sweeter than in that 
Armenian church on that day. 



✓ 



TITHE- GI VINO — RE VI VAL. 



259 



in sympathy with the hearers, saying, u We, 
and not ye." 

Hidakegh Pastor. Good preaching and pray- 
ing and good living will turn men to Christ. 
We must, too, tell men that they are lost, and 
put the Bible into their hands. 

HuseniJc Preacher. Two errors prevail, and 
keep sinners away from Christ. They feel, 
(1.) That to think on spiritual things is only 
preachers' business, and, (2.) That preachers 
are proud. We must try to remove these im- 
pressions. 

Perchenj Pastor. We must preach God's jus- 
tice, to awaken sinners. 

Harpoot Pastor. This is true. We must 
dwell upon special truths fitted to rouse men. 

John Concordance. Men confess that the soul's 
salvation is a great thing, and that worldly 
things are nothing. Let us enforce this idea. 

Malatia Pastor. We must dwell much on 
the love of God in Christ Jesus. The Green- 
landers, who had listened unmoved for years 
to other things, could not resist this. 

Perehenj Pastor. We must preach on the 



2 GO TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

worth of the soul, so valuable that God's Son 
died to save it. 

Maden Helper. Men need to feel the hate- 
fulness of sin, and dread its punishment. Let 
us talk of these, trembling ourselves. 

PaM Preacher. We must love the people, and 
labor in private with them personally. 

Harpoot Pastor. We must preach practically, 
for a purpose, asking not, What shall I say to 
fill up the time ? but, What do my people need, 
and what can they do ? We must give cor- 
rect ideas of the Christian life as it is, and not 
as biographers represent it, when trying to 
make saints of their subjects.* We must preach 
practically, experimentally, feelingly, trying to 
live as we preach. 

Mashkir Pastor. All my thoughts have been 
given by others, except that we try to show 

* Would it not be well for writers of biographies in other lands to 
remember this, and not discourage readers by making all their sub- 
jects perfect ? In reading the lives of departed saints, it strengthens 
the reader sometimes in Christian .purpose to know that they, too, 
had human weaknesses to trouble them, as well as we poor sinners 
who yet remain in the flesh. 



TITHE-GIVING — REVIVAL. 



2G1 



men the uncertainty of life and the need of 
preparation for death. 

A Missionary. How solemn the responsibility 
resting upon us all ! At the Judgment it will 
be said, " Where are the souls I committed to 
you ? " We must by prayer and effort lay hold 
on sinners to lead them to Christ, and there 
will be a revival. You pastors must not look 
to us, but to Christ, and pray much for each 
other, and so labor as to save your people. 

Shepih Pastor. We must remember God's 
words by Ezekiel, " His blood will I require at 
their hand." I confess that I have not done 
my duty. 

Harpoot Pastor. This discussion has been a 
useful one. Henceforth let us labor for a re- 
vival. 

The afternoon session was devoted chiefly to 
discussion of the question, " Ought the churches 
henceforth to support their pastors without aid 
from abroad ? " Much to our surprise and 
gratification, this question, after a lengthy dis- 
cussion, was decided unanimously in the affirm- 



262 TEN YEARS OJST THE EUPHRATES. 

ative, and then the means of securing the end 
considered. 

On subsequent days, other questions were 
discussed, e.g., — 

" What means shall we use to keep the 
churches pure ? " " Is poverty ever a reason 
for leaving the ministry ? " " Wha£ means 
shall we use that all the members of the 
churches may be more wakeful and spiritual 
men ? " " How shall we win men ? " 

After a full discussion of the question of 
tithes, the following, which was penned by the 
Harpoot pastor, was unanimously adopted : 
" Resolved, that we exhort our people to give a 
tenth or more of all their earnings for the 
Lord's work, not as bound by the Mosaic law, 
but from the duty of Christian liberality, and 
because they and all they have are consecrated 
to God, and, when necessary, they are to give 
all their possessions and their lives also for his 
glory." , 

I have already spoken of the fact that the 
pastors and preachers set the example to their 
flocks by giving a tenth of their own salaries 



TITHE-GIVING - — REVIVAL. 263 

for the support of teachers in the theological 
seminary. 

From that meeting we all returned with the 
purpose to preach over the blind man's sermon 
till others should imitate the people of Shepik. 

Among the communities which threatened 
to be most difficult to bring up to this duty was 
Hulakegh, of which, on account of the exces- 
sively niggardly character of the people, I once 
said, " I know of one people that will never 
have a pastor. They are too mean to support 
one." They had, however, settled a pastor, in 
1865, and were then paying two-thirds of his 
salary. Having often labored in past days to 
rouse their generosity, I got an invitation from 
the pastor to go down and try the blind man's 
sermon on his people, and, if possible, to per- 
suade them to support him entirely. I was 
able to preach as never before to them, and 
still was obliged to come away feeling that tlie 
point was not gained. They would not set a 
noble example to the other churches. The 
offer to " beg money somewhere, and help sup- 
port their school for five years," if they would 



264 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



only begin at once to support their pastor, did 
not rouse them to the strength of purpose to 
say, " We will." They met, and talked, and 
prayed over the matter ; but among their num- 
ber was one man of some means who could not 
make up his mind to consecrate his tenth. A 
young slrudent in the seminary being present in 
one of these meetings, and seeing this man's 
course, broke out with, " Brother, it seems to 
me that only those who are afraid God will 
give them a great deal are unwilling to return 
his tenth ! " 

This was an arrow in the mark. The man, 
who was really a Christian, exclaimed, " I 
see it ! " and at once rose and began to pray, 
confessing, " God, I have robbed thee, but 
will do so no more ! " Bach of the others pres- 
ent did the same, each man making his sepa- 
rate covenant with God by prayer. 

They then said to the young student, " When 
harvest time comes, we wish, you, with the best 
singers in the seminary, to come down, and 
we'll put you on one cart, and the Lord's por- 



TITHE-GIVING 



— HE VITAL. 



265 



tion of our grain on others, and bear it with 
songs of joy to its place." * 

Through the efforts of the pastors and oth- 
ers, this spirit gradually spread. Two other 
churches, which were then receiving aid from 
us, began to care for themselves, and the crisis 
of the conflict with the covetousness of the 
churches and communities seemed to be passed. 

As one result in Harpoot city, the office of 
collector to go from man to man and dun for 
the pastor's salary was abolished, and a box, 
with a hole in the cover, and the keys of its 
two locks in the hands of two men, who, to 
prevent any misappropriation of funds, must 
open it together, was put in a public place, and 
each man expected to do his tithe-giving, as he 
does his praying in secret, from the fear and 
love of God. 

It was deeply interesting to see the effect 
produced on some minds by this action. 

* The regulations for collecting the government tenths compel the 
people to retain their grain on the threshing-floor till leave is given 
to all to remove and store it. 

Crops thus waiting for the tithing-man are often injured or de- 
stroyed by storms. 



266 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

Said a plain man one day, " I feel that this 
entering into partnership with God — he fur- 
nishing the capital and asking ten per cent, of 
the gains for its use — will save me from much 
temptation. How can I dare to cheat now, and 
put dishonest gains into his treasury ? " A lit- 
tle girl in Maine one day gave me two cents 
for missions, saying, " I have scoured them." 
This tithe-giving promises to clean the money 
which goes into the Lord's treasury in eastern 
Turkey. Would it not be well if all Christians 
would oftener scour their money, by entering 
into partnership with God ? Another man, be- 
ing present at a meeting in which some pledged 
their tenth, went away, and returned the fol- 
lowing week, saying, " I was here last week, 
and heard you talk, and I said, ' How shall I 
consecrate my money to the Lord, when I have 
not yet given him my heart f ' I trust I have 
now done the last, and wish to do the first. 
Please put down my name." He had not pre- 
viously been known as ' a Protestant, if indeed 
he had attended the chapel. 

We now began to see the connection between 



TITHE-GIVING REVIVAL. 



267 



the two subjects discussed in the Shepik meet- 
ing. In discussing there the means of secur- 
ing a revival, no one had thought of tithe-giv- 
ing ; but one " means," whose use God blessed 
to revive his own people and turn sinners to 
Christ, was this consecration of their substance 
to him. According to his promise, he opened, 
not the "windows of heaven," to give rain and 
fruitful harvests till there was not " room 
enough to receive" them, — though he has 
since in a striking way bestowed this blessing 
on some of the tithe-givers, — but the windows 
of his spiritual heavens, to pour down the bles- 
sings of his grace. 

A full account of the precious revival which 
followed in Harpoot city and several other 
places, and in which many persons were 
brought to Christ, and the members of several 
of the churches lifted up into a higher plane of 
spirituality, would fill chapters instead of 
pages. The first decided indications of the 
Spirit's presence were in a meeting of the Har- 
poot city church for examining candidates for 
church-membership. All present wept together 

18 



268 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



over their sins, but the candidates were not ex- 
amined, and the pastor dismissed the meeting, 
saying, u I leave you in the hands of the Holy 
Spirit." 

Some cases of conversion were deeply inter- 
esting, and some of awakening and failure to 
find true peace even more deeply painful. 

Some years ago, a wealthy young man named 
Sarkis, a man of intelligence, and who had 
traveled quite extensively, and, in his travels, 
had imbibed the principles of French infidels, 
came to Harpoot, and went into partnership 
with a man named Mardiros, who, hearing his 
partner's infidel sentiments, said to him, " I 
am no Protestant ; I never go near them ; but 
I advise you to go to them, and buy and read a 
Bible, and be cured of your infidelity." Sar- 
kis, who was a lover of books, followed this ad- 
vice. 

Meeting the Protestant pastor occasionally in 
the market-place, he gradually became inter- 
ested in him, after a while began to call upon 
him at his house, and then to come occasion- 
ally to the chapel, where at last he was a con- 



TITHE-GIVING REVIVAL. 



269 



stant attendant. As the pastor was one clay 
preaching with much earnestness and power, a 
sense of his lost condition took such hold of 
Sarins that by no effort could he throw it off. 
When his wife, seeing his sadness, asked and 
he told her the cause, she laughed at the idea 
of a man's feeling so sad about sins, which a 
priest could so easily pardon. When he re- 
quested her to go and call the pastor, who 
lived near, she pretended to do so, and re- 
turned, saying, u He says he will not come." 
Her explanation of this untruth was, " He tried 
to deceive me ; why should not I pay him 
in his own coin ? " Thus cast off by men, as 
he supposed, Sarkis opened his Bible for com- 
fort; but his eyes fell on Matt. xxi. 19, "Let 
no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever." 
" I am that cursed, fig-tree ! " he exclaimed, 
and in despair closed the book. He saw and 
conversed with the pastor, but for days found 
no peace. 

Among the new converts was a man named 
Garabed, one whose joy and zeal to lead others 
to Christ were very great. One day the pastor, 



270 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

with this young convert and Sarkis, went to 
call upon the only Unitarian to be found in 
Harpoot, a man who for years had been an ear- 
nest Protestant, and a liberal supporter of the 
pastor, and whose case excited much sympathy, 
not only among Protestants, but among the Ar- 
menians also ; even Sarkis's careless wife hav- 
ing prayed God to enlighten the poor Unitarian, 
who, in her view, had, by renouncing Jesus as 
his Saviour, turned Turk. The pastor, as he 
afterwards said, did not realize what he was do- 
ing, till, with that young convert and the anx- 
ious sinner, Sarkis, he found himself really in 
the house of the Unitarian, who would deny 
that Saviour whom one had newly found and 
the other was seeking. He then tried to leave 
without talking, but Garabed could not go till 
he had said one word for his Saviour, to which 
when the Unitarian replied, Sarkis took up the 
talk, and began to plead the cause of that Re- 
deemer whom, as he said, he would himself 
gladly find. Suddenly his sad, despairing look 
departed, and he, too, began to tell of a Saviour 
found. He at once called together his former 



TITHE-GI VING — RE VI VAL. 



271 



associates, the chief Armenians of the city, and 
declared his changed views and feelings, ex- 
pecting to be ridiculed, but, instead, all heard 
with much seriousness, and one, bursting into 
tears, begged him to pray for him. 

His and his partner's chief business had been 
lending money at the usurious rates which pre- 
vail in Turkey ; * but, feeling that he could no 
longer pursue such business, he decided to leave 
it. To this his partner agreed, but when, with 
Zaccheus, he said, " I must restore that which 
I have wrongfully taken," Mardiros objected. 
" Let by-gones be by-gones ! Why should Tie be 
brought into reproach by his partner's repent- 
ance ? " Sarkis, however, was inexorable. Res- 
titution he must make, even if thereby reduced 
to beggary. The uniform influence of the re- 
vival was thus to lead its subjects to confess 
and forsake sin and make restitution to those 
who had been wronged. 

* Worldly men in Christian lands do not realize how much the gos- 
pel does for their business. Such is the prevalent distrust of each 
other among men in that land of the Koran, and the Scriptures 
buried in an unknown tongue, that, while the legal rate of interest is 
twelve per cent., the usual rate varies from twenty to one hundred 
per cent. 



272 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

Mardiros was in a state of intense excite- 
ment, and one day used such language that Bar- 
kis replied, " If you talk so, you must leave my 
presence ; I can not hear my God blasphemed." 

Late that evening a person came to me say- 
ing, " Do come quick and see Mardiros ! They 
say he is dying." I found him lying upon the 
floor, groaning, and crying out in great agony, 
saying, " I shall die ! I shall die ! " Seeing at 
once that his was not bodily but mental agony, 
I said to him, " You are not dying. Your 
soul is sick, not your body." He then confessed 
that it was so, told me of his blasphemy, and 
asked what he must do to be saved. He said 
he was ready to do anything to be free from his 
load of sin. I pointed out the way, quoting the 
invitations of the gospel, and, in closing, re- 
ferred to the case of Sarkis, and inquired 
whether he was willing to take up the cross as 
he had done. 66 1 am," he said, and begged me 
to pray with him. I .again set before him the 
nature of repentance and faith, and the fruits 
which, in his case, they must bear, telling him 
it would be far better not to vow than to vow 



T1.THE-GIVWG — UE VIVAL. 



273 



and not pay ; and again inquired whether he was 
ready to take up his cross and bear it, and be 
known as a Christian. " I am ready for all," 
he replied; "do pray with me." I did so, and 
he exclaimed, " Amen ! I say amen to that 
prayer." The next morning he appeared in our 
prayer-meeting, and it was generally known 
that " Mardiros too had become a Protestant." 
That evening Sarkis came to me, saying, " Mar- 
diros is wavering. Will you come and see him ? " 
I went, and, after some conversation, he in- 
quired whether salvation was impossible in the 
Armenian Church. " Yes, for you," I replied, 
and reminded him of his vow. That evening 
he came to the prayer-meeting, but the next day 
went back to the Armenian church and his old 
companions, saying, " If you wish perfect peace 
of conscience, go to the Protestant meetings, 
and get convicted of your sins, and then come 
and do as I am doing." " The one shall be 
taken and the other left." " Therefore hath He 
mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom 
he will he hardeneth." 

The wretched man found the cross too heavy ; 



274 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



and, instead of calling for help to bear it, chose 
to cast it away, and turn aside from the narrow 
way to go in one of his own choosing. Eph- 
raitn is joined to his idols, and, at his wish, God 
lets him alone. 

The Unitarian renounced his errors of the 
head, and, such was the change, supposed he 
had become a Christian, but was kindly assured 
of his mistake, and subsequently appeared really 
to have met with a change of heart. 

The revival had three characteristics : confi- 
dence in the efficacy of prayer ; abhorrence of 
sin, with confession and restitution ; and earnest 
desire to bring others to the Saviour. Anions; 
its subjects were persons of both sexes and all 
ages and conditions. Some very interesting 
cases of conversion were those of quite young 
children. Some " feeble " Christians, as they 
called themselves, feeling that they must do 
something, established a prayer-meeting in the 
city, to which they invited the most wicked and 
outcast boys and young men, with whom they 
prayed and sang, each one telling his Christian 
experience ; qfter which they called on the new- 



TITHE-GIVING — jRE VIVAL. 



275 



comers to tell their feelings. Several were thus 
brought to Christ. All the Armenian popula- 
tion of the city was moved ; and they too estab- 
lished meetings for prayer, which, however, we 
fear, resulted in little, if any, good. Those who 
were in earnest in seeking salvation — those who 
did not, like the wretched Mardiros, wish to es- 
cape the cross — came to the Protestant chapel. 
And blessed prayer-meetings indeed did we 
have, in the city and other places. Formal 
praying was done with, and men — and women 
too, in the female prayer-meetings — -seemed to 
get near the throne of grace, and express defi- 
nite desires in a definite and earnest way. 

But, among all the meetings which it was my 
privilege to enjoy, none surpassed, if any equaled 
in interest, those in Hooeli, the village spoken 
of in the last part of chapter fifth. When the 
report came that a revival was in progress there, 
our weak faith could hardly credit it. Mr. Bar- 
num went, and returned reporting thirty per- 
sons, some of them apparently the most hope- 
less cases in the village, as hoping they had 
found the Saviour. It seemed too much to be- 



276 TEN YE AUS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

lieve. I went down to spend three days there. 
The winter before, when, on one occasion, the 
newly-erected chapel was filled, it was no easy 
matter to keep the crowd of women still during 
service. This time the room, — intended to 
accommodate less than three hundred,- — even 
with oriental packing upon the pewless floor, 
was crowded to overflowing with more than 
four hundred ; and though I rose from a sick- 
bed twice in those three days, and could only 
speak in a feeble voice, no sound nor motion 
disturbed the meetings. The crowd listened 
as for their lives, while the story of the cross 
was told. Strong-willed and hard-hearted men, 
some of whom had in past days ridiculed Protes- 
tant prayer and put our helper into the street, 
prayed with a simplicity and fervor which told 
that they were taught by the Spirit. When at 
the close of one service I said, " Now bring my 
horse ; I must go home ; I am sick ;" " Oh, do 
not ! " said they. " Do stay a little longer. We 
will pray for you and you will get well ;" and, a 
man at each arm, they assisted me up a ladder, 
and over the roof, to a neat little room, one of 



TITHE-GIVING 



— REVIVAL, 



277 



the only two second-story rooms in the village, 
built because they said, " Why should our 
missionaries come and sleep in our dark and 
filthy stables, as they used to ? " And then, 
with a comfortable fire of wood in a stove,* and 
their nicest bed to rest upon, they left me, say- 
ing to the crowd who followed, " Now go away, 
and let him rest and get well." They then 
held a prayer-meeting by themselves, and I did 
indeed get w ell for the next meeting. As I was 
about to leave, saying, " Now I am really going 
home ; I can not stop longer," seven aged wid- 
ows, who had been sitting beneath the pulpit, 
inquired, " Can't you stop just a moment lon- 
ger and teach us how to pray ? " 

But I must hasten to the close of the Hooeli 
story. Of the crowd who frequented the chapel, 
between forty and fifty hopefully found the Sav- 
iour, and they now say, " We ask no more aid 
from you. Only give us a pastor, and we will 
support him and care for ourselves." 

But now comes the time of trial. With their 
second new and larger and finer chapel and 

* In place of the usual dried manure in an " ojak," or fireplace. 



278 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

school-rooms and parsonage,* like some commu- 
nities at home in similar circumstances, they 
began to feel that they must have a new minis- 
ter. They had previously begun to feel that the 
humble and earnest, but not mighty nor elo- 
quent man, whose labors God had so blessed 
among them, " would do," as they said, " to 
gather in the lambs, but not to feed the sheep ;" 
and, in my last talk to the senior class in the 
theological seminary, setting before each one 
his own special need, I said to him, " Brother 
Garabed, your people say that you are weak ; 
and I fear, if you don't study harder, you'll fail 
of a call ; " to which he replied, and truly, that 
he had devoted too much time to other things. 
The result feared came, and they, contrary to 
the advice of the missionaries, called in turn 
two others, " first-class" men, from the graduat- 
ing class to come and preach to them. But 
both chose harder fields, one going to Geghi 
Kasabah, spoken of in chapter ninth. 

Meanwhile, their preacher, whom they had re- 
jected, was called to go to another place, and his 

* See chapter fifth, page 140. 



TITHE-GIVING 



REVIVAL. 



279 



people had come to the city with their donkeys 
to take him and his family home.* They were 
quietly sleeping at his house, preparatory to 
starting for their village on the morrow, when, 
at midnight, nine of the principal men of 
Hooeli roused him from sleep, and began to beg 
his pardon for treating him so, saying, " Come, 
get your goods ready and go with us." The 
people, seeing their failure to get the other 
preachers whom they called, took it as God's 
rebuke for their pride, and, having met to pray, 
sent these nine of the chief men to ask pardon 
of Garabed in person, while others wrote letters 
asking pardon and begging him to come. The 
parties from both places then appealed to the 
missionaries, who declined to interfere, advising 
them to pray and decide among themselves. 
Both parties agreed to accept the preacher's 
decision as God's will, and he, after prayer and 
reflection, decided to return to his old people. 

Meanwhile, twenty of the women of Hooeli, 
impatient at the delay, met also for prayer, 
and with difficulty were prevented from coming 

* He has six children on earth and six in heaven. 



280 



. TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



in a body to bring the delaying preacher. 
" But the brethren," says Mr. Allen, " kept 
them back, and at length their preacher reached 
the place, and no preacher has had so trium- 
phant an entrance to his village since Harpoot 
Seminary, existed." They now desire that a 
church be formed, and that he be ordained at 
once. I should have said before that he is one 
of the " home missionaries" who first came to 
the place from Perchenj, as mentioned on page 
138, praying, "0 Lord! give us open doors 
and hearts." 

Thus He who, by him, began and has carried 
on the work in that hard place, has disciplined 
both people and preacher for their prospective 
union as church and pastor, and prepared both 
to receive and do yet greater good. 

I can not close this chapter without speaking 
further of the " confidence in the efficacy of 
prayer," which was spoken of as a trait of the 
revival. - 

That confidence was not only justified by 
God's promises, but encouraged also by special 
answers to prayer. The Unitarian spoken of 



TITHE-GI VIXG RE VIVAL. 



281 



renounced his errors and indulged hope in 
Christ, apparently in answer to special prayer. 

Among the usual congregation at the Prot- 
estant chapel in Harpoot was one man, the fa- 
ther of the young man Garabed, spoken of at 
the close of chapter seventh. The mother too 
was a Christian, but the husband seemed to 
have a heart steeled against all religious im- 
pressions, and to be consumed with love of the 
world, and a greedy desire for more money. 
He was, moreover, a perfect Pharisee in self- 
righteousness, and his conscience was so seared 
that neither preaching nor the personal exhor- 
tations of his friends made any impression up- 
on him. His son and his wife were deeply anx- 
ious about him. They saw others coming to 
Christ, and felt that the father and husband 
must not be left out. 

In this state of mind, the wife went to the 
usual weekly female prayer-meeting, and with 
tears told her feeling for her husband, and re- 
quested prayer on his behalf. 

Soon after, he went to bed sick, as his family 
supposed, who wondered that he did not call 



282 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

the physician. Instead of doing so, he called 
his son, and said to him, " Garabed, tell me 
what I must do to be saved." This speedy an- 
swer to his prayers was almost too much for 
the young man, and, with mingled astonish- 
ment and diffidence, he replied, " Father, shall 
I not call the pastor ? " " No," replied the fa- 
ther, " you must tell me yourself ; " and Gara- 
bed pointed his anxious parent to the Lamb of 
God, that taketh away the sin of the world ; 
and, at the next prayer-meeting, the mother 
told her joy that her husband had found the 
Saviour. When asked what had moved him to 
seek the salvation of his soul, he replied, " I 
saw that all my family were going to heaven, 
and I was on the way to eternal death." 
Among the converts had been a son of his, a 
little boy of ten years. 

But Christians not only learned to confide 
more in the power of prayer ; they learned also 
to pray as never before. They seemed to be 
specially taught by the Spirit. 

In earlier days we were pained by the for- 



TITHE-GIVING 



REVIVAL. 



283 



mality with which even those who seemed to 
be true Christians prayed. 

There was comparatively little of that stereo- 
typed praying of which we hear, if we do not 
at times hear it, here at home, which always 
begins and ends at the same spot, and is quite 
sure to pass through or over a formal petition 
for " God's ancient covenant people, the Jews ; " 
but there was that prolific oriental formality 
of preface and appendix, which was even more 
tedious. The worshiper, like a stranger at the 
court of heaven, had a painfully minute round 
of introductory phrases to repeat at entering, 
and, at leaving, bowed himself out with a still 
more prolix round of formal, high-sounding 
phrases, which made every hearer pray that 
that man might either know the way better to 
and from the throne of grace, and feel more at 
home there, or else cease trying to lead others 
to it. But, during the revival, all that came 
to an end, and men went to the throne of grace 
with an earnestness and directness of purpose 
and expression which told that they had some- 
thing to ask, and expected to get it. Seldom, 

19 



284 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

indeed, was a long prayer heard ; but the hour 
of daily prayer was usually filled with brief, 
pointed petitions, and remarks which were also 
to the point. 

In earlier times we had with difficulty pre- 
vented a continuance of the habit of the Arme- 
nians, of going daily i morning and evening, to 
the church for a formal, heartless ceremony, 
and succeeded in establishing two regular 
weekly prayer-meetings ; but when the revival 
began during the week of prayer, January, 1867, 
all felt, and we with them, that we must con- 
tinue to meet each morning and evening for 
prayer ; and we did so, with the exception of 
occasional evenings, when the public meeting 
gave place to personal visits for conversation 
and prayer at the houses of Armenians who had 
not attended. In this way some of them were 
brought to the meetings and to Christ. 

It is, of course, difficult to number the real 
converts during those weeks of revival ; but 
our hope is that about two hundred persons 
found the Saviour ; while an even greater 
amount of good was done in raising Christians, 



TITHE-GIVING 



— REVIVAL. 



285 



including the missionaries, to a higher plane of 
faith and feeling and action, and leading us to 
expect and labor for other such seasons. The 
apparent want of deep spirituality on the part 
of converts, especially while they often had so 
much of a certain sort of religious enthusiasm, 
had begun to fill us with painful anxiety ; and, 
not many months before this awakening, one 
of our number remarked, " I am troubled and 
alarmed at seeing so much, enthusiasm and so 
little spirituality. If, with such a head of steam 
on, these communities get on the wrong track, 
as they are in danger of doing, nothing but the 
grace of God can save the cause from ruin." 

But, thank God, his grace has interposed, 
and, as we hope, rescued many souls from 
death, and his cause from present disaster. I 
need not say that we ail feel that dangers in 
many forms still lie in the path, clangers from 
which only that same interposing grace can 
save. 

In letters received from my associates, no re- 
quest is oftener repeated than this, — " Pray for 
us, and ask all Christians to do the same." 



CHAPTER XI. 

POSITION OF THE CHURCHES AND PASTORS. 

THE PROSPECT. 

We desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to 
the full assurance of hope unto the end. — Heb. vi. 11. 

SINGLE question remains to be consid- 
ered : With what spirit are the churches 
and their pastors entering into and car- 
rying out the views of missionary policy 
which have been advanced? It has already 
been shown that at first they were acceptable 
to neither party. Both desired to be " inde- 
pendent" of missionary control. Even hire- 
ling men, whose daily bread was furnished by 
the missionaries, have been known to issue dec- 
larations of independence. 

And churches and communities dislike to be 
in any way crossed in their plans. A commit- 
tee from the Harpoot people once visited us to 

286 




POSITION OF THE CHURCHES AND PASTORS. 287 

protest against our interference, and, in a 
word, request that we would let them alone, 
and mind our own business. Some prominent 
men did not wish to pay their share of the ex- 
pense of building the pastor's house, and took 
this means to save their money. When, after 
their departure, the question was proposed 
to us, " What will you do about it ? " the reply 
was, " Have another committee call to beg par- 
don and request us to go on." And so it hap- 
pened within twenty-four hours. 

It was only necessary to say to the assem- 
bled people, " You have reason to rebuke us 
for meddling with your business. We have 
been constantly doing it from the first day till 
now, supporting your preachers and teachers, 
and helping you in various ways without ask- 
ing leave, but now we shall profit by your re- 
buke, and mind our own business." The sec- 
ond committee called, and the work of collect- 
ing the needed money became easy. But now 
the state of feeling is very different. They 
feel that independence and self-support go togeth- 
er, and desire both, and enter, with more self- 



288 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

reliance than we had dared to hope, into the 
performance of their duties. 

We had our fears, and, at the time of their 
forming the " Evangelical Union," with an eye 
to future possible evils needing correction by 
our hands, had with some difficulty secured 
the insertion in the constitution of the declara- 
tion, that u the missionaries have still the right 
to prosecute their special work independent- 
ly ; " and when, in the autumn of 1866, we 
saw a large body of pastors and delegates as- 
sembled, some of whom, as we knew, disap- 
proved of some of our methods, we began 
rather fearfully to query whether we had not 
been in too much haste in committing the af- 
fairs of the churches into their hands. Care- 
ful to abstain from undue inteference, we wait- 
ed, with some anxiety, to see what would be 
done with the crude and radical propositions 
occasionallv made. 

To our joy, we found that increasing light 
and a sense of increased responsibility had 
wrought in some minds a wonderful change in 
the right direction. One man was present 



POSITION OF THE CHURCHES AND PASTORS. 289 

who, when an increased amount of the pastor's 
salary was put upon the Harpoot church, had 
angrily inquired, " By what right do these men 
put this burden on the poor people ? " But 
when in tftis meeting a motion was made to 
get the pastors' salaries from other sources 
than their churches, this same man, aided by 
the pastor of the Arabkir church, so showed 
the folly and harm of the proposal that its 
mover dropped it in shame. 

When the motion had been made, and we 
were anxiously waiting to see what reception 
it would meet, the Arabkir pastor rose and 
said, " This is to enable the pastor to be inde- 
pendent of his people, and to say, 6 What have 
you given me, that I should be your servant ! " 

The force of this pithy argument is more 
felt in that land, where the ecclesiastics rule 
and devour the people, and where this tendency 
is one of the greatest dangers to be watched 
against in laying the foundations of the church- 
es. He then went on to show that it would be 
for the good of the churches to support their 
pastors. They would thus love and heed them 



290 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



more. This he illustrated by his own recent 
sale of his paternal house, one timber in which 
had been inserted at his own expense. " While 
I lived in the house," said he, " my eye, on en- 
tering, always rested first on the spot which I 
had repaired ; and, when I sold and left it, it 
cost me more pain to part with that one timber 
than with all the rest., which had cost me no 
expense and labor." 

Said the Harpoot pastor, " The pastor who 
should get support from any source outside of 
his own people would not be under their con- 
trol." In a subsequent discussion, concerning 
the support of the poor, he said, " I am fully 
persuaded that every church which is worthy 
of the name is not only able to support its poor, 
but its pastor too, if only he be willing to live 
as he should." At this I could not help ex- 
claiming, " Bless the Lord for that word ! I 
would not have dared to say it, but, now that 
it is said, I believe it." 

An extract from a circular letter, addressed 
by the Harpoot pastor to the churches, in Dec. 
1866, will show his spirit. 



POSITION OF THE CHURCHES AND PASTORS. 21) 1 

Speaking of the three meetings of the Evan- 
gelical Union held during the year, and of the 
principal subjects discussed in them, viz., in the 
first, the " purity and good order of the church- 
es ;" in the second, the resolution that it is time 
for the churches to assume the entire support 
of their pastors ; and in the third, the resolution 
to undertake the mission to Koordistan ; and 
referring also to the resolution, passed at She- 
pik, that it is the duty of all Christians to con- 
secrate at least one-tenth of their earnings to 
the Lord, he says, " We have made, then, all 
needed decisions, and it only remains to put 
our good resolutions in force. It is wise to 
pass good resolutions, but only in keeping them 
is there progress. If not kept they do harm 
rather than good." He then goes on to point 
out the means of putting these decisions in 
force, and urges the churches to use these 
means at once. In speaking of self-support, he 
says, " Long enough have we received aid from 
others. It is time for us to take care of our- 
selves. We, too, should be good men and 
Christians. How long shall we remain in sub- 



292 



TEW YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



jeotion to the beneficence of others? We are 
to be grateful for benefits received, and to 
strive to do well. As Christians, we are to re- 
member the words of the Lord Jesus, how he 
said, 6 It is more blessed to give than to re- 
ceive.' Let each one of you be liberal-handed. 
Constantly bring willing and generous offer- 
ings. Look ever to him who, though rich, for 
your sakes became poor. Be willing for his 
sake also to become poor. You can not serve 
two masters. Lay up your treasure in heaven, 
that your hearts may be there also.^ Let your 
pastors also look to him who had not where to 
lay his head. If you do these things, as is 
your duty, the decisions of that second meet- 
ing will be already carried out." 

In speaking of the Koordish missionary work, 
he says, " Many of our people now know not 
the greatness of the work which you are un- 
dertaking ; but in a little while they will know 
that it is a very great and glorious work, and 
will confess that you, who, as Protestants, were 
regarded as lost from our nation, have rather 
found and brought back those who, by reason 



POSITION OF THE CHURCHES AND PASTORS. 293 

of their language, were lost from it.* As 
Christians, reflect that the one chief sign of 
your Christianity is your making known to 
poor sinners the Lord Jesus and his holy 
word." Going on to urge them to Christian 
effort, he adds, " Esteem it a great favor from 
God that he gives you the opportunity and the 
ability to do such a work. Try, every one of 
you, to have a part in this great and glorious 
work. Let the poor remember the poor widow 
and her two mites. This work will be done ! 
Our Koordish-speaking brethren will be taught 
our language, and to read it. They will read 
and understand the Word of God. By his 
grace, they will give themselves to the Lord 
Jesus. And those who amid difficulties labor 
for them now will hereafter rejoice and be 
glad ; but they who now, through carelessness 
or want of faith, have no share in this work, 
will then be filled with sorrow and shame. 
The year 1866 is about to end. May the Lord 

* This refers to the fact that most of the Armenians in Koordistan 
have, by centuries of subjection to the Koords, lost their national 
tongue, the Armenian, and speak only the Koordish. 



294 



TEN YEA US ON THE EUPHRATES. 



give you a happy new year, that you may pass 
it in earnestly serving him. May he give you 
wisdom and grace to spend your short lives in 
doing such glorious works. 

" May he remove far from you covetousness 
and want of faith. May he help and guide 
you, that you may be able to do such works as 
you will rejoice over in the hour of death, at 
the day of judgment, and through eternity." 

And the feeling of many of the people is 
similar to that of these pastors. 

If anybody imagines that they have put 
away all their covetousness, that they would 
not accept and even welcome foreign aid, that 
they would prefer to support their own pastors 
rather than to have some rich foreign society 
do it for them, I can only say, " That dreamer 
does not understand human nature, and, least 
of all, oriental nature." 

There are not a few communities in civilized, 
enlightened, Christian America, that are not 
ashamed to get from the Home Missionary So- 
ciety the salary of a pastor whom, if they would 
give as do some churches in eastern Turkey, 



THE PliOSPECT. 



295 



they could support five times over. But this 
we can say, that a spirit of independent Chris- 
tian manliness is in process of development, 
which promises in the end to make many per- 
fect men in Christ Jesus. 

But our greatest satisfaction is not in seeing 
the people give money. This, though essential, 
they might do from other than really Christian 
motives. Many of the most liberal givers are 
not apparently renewed men. Theirs is some- 
times a sort of religious enthusiasm, which, 
though infinitely better than sordid meanness, 
is not piety. What pleases us most is, that, 
with the exception of a majority of those upon 
the annexed territory already spoken of,* most 
of the churches — as well as those little compa- 
nies of believers, now nine in number, in the 
Harpoot field, who are hoping ere long to be or- 
ganized as churches — appear to be composed of 
really Christian men and women, who desire to 
know and do their duty. 

One pleasing trait of character is their child- 
like simplicity of faith in God's word. Once 

* See page 110, 



296 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



convince tbem that the Bible teaches a thing, 
and they uhesitatingly receive it, and, if it be 
a duty enjoined, endeavor to do it.* They are 
as careful in maintaining secret, family, and so- 
cial prayer as are Christians in this land, and 
the last more so. This was true even before 
the precious revival spoken of in chapter tenth. 
During that, the prayer-meetings were indeed 
soul-refreshing. The Sabbath is as carefully 
and conscientiously kept as by Christians in this 
land, and the churches, taking counsel not of 

* Take as an example of this the man mentioned on p. 266. While 
speaking of the spiritual advantage of tithe-giving, he said, " Some 
of us have been thinking that our whole duty is not done by giving 
a tenth of what we may hereafter' earn. Ought we not to restore that 
of which we have ' robbed ' God? (Mai. iii. 8.) To be sure, we have 
not gained much by it. I have only my small house left, and I can 
not spare a tenth of that, neither does God want it. But we have 
been asking whether we ought not to have our houses appraised, and 
pay rent on God's part." 

In accordance with our habit of not deciding such questions for 
them, I replied, " Brother, reflect and pray over it, and you will be 
guided to a correct decision." 

I confess my hope that he decided to call God's tenth of his house 
rent-free for his family altar, and my wish, too, that all who profess 
to serve God might be even half as conscientious as this humble 
man so recently rescued from the power of superstition. Let no one 
take so rose-colored a view as to suppose that all or even a majority 
of the Christians in our mission-field are like this man. 



THE PROSPECT. 297 

us, but of the Bible and its Author, are in some 
cases even more strict than perhaps we should 
be in disciplining those who are accused of des- 
ecrating it. None of them have yet learned 
that a half day's attendance at the sanctuary 
will suffice. It is a universal feeling that all 
differences between members must be settled 
before coming to the communion table. They 
are generally more careful in receiving mem- 
bers, maintaining discipline, and using all 
means to have none but real followers of Christ 
at the sacramental table, than are most churches 
in this land. 

One of the most blessed fruits of the gospel 
is seen in the constant increase of Christian 
feeling and action in the family circle, making 
parents and children dwell together in mutual 
sympathy and affection, parents striving to bring 
up the children in the fear of God, and children 
yielding to their parents due reverence, not 
from fear, as was once the case, but because 
they are their parents. Perhaps I hardly need 
say that the almost universal oriental habit of 
lying is wholly discountenanced and mostly un- 



298 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



known in the churches. In a word, Christianity 
is doing a thorough work, individually and so- 
cially, and we begin to see the dawn of a better 
day on that part of Turkey, — of a day when we 
may leave the remaining work to the churches 
planted. I may add that we begin to see day- 
light in the missionary night of toil. We begin 
to see how the time will come when there shall 
no longer be a call for missionaries from this 
land, but the churches planted on heathen soil 
shall complete the work of evangelizing their 
own and kindred nations. Of the twelve hun- 
dred cities and villages * located by missionary 
exploration, sixty-six have been occupied as 
missionary out-stations, and we propose to oc- 
cupy only about one hundred and ten more, and 
leave the remaining work to the churches. f 

For the whole of eastern Turkey, with its 
hundred and seventy thousand square miles of 
territory and more than three millions of people, 
we desire, in all, but twelve preaching, and one 

* See page 65. 

f There are in the district twenty-five hundred cities and villages, 
so that we propose to occupy but one in fourteen. 



» 



THE PROSPECT. 



299 



or two medical missionaries. The latter, like 
Dr. West, of Sivas, are to do, in the medical 
department, what the others do for the churches : 
while aiding in other mission work, and espe- 
cially caring for the missionary families, they are 
to train and put into the work native physicians, 
whom the people shall learn to support, by first 
paying the missionary physician for his prac- 
tice. 

A greater economy in men and means is thus 
secured than is possible by any other method. 
We are not planting flowers in a missionary 
vase, to be watered at foreign expense, but 
trees in their own soil, and those, too, banyan 
trees, whose branches, ever dropping new shoots 
to the ground to take root and form new stocks, 
shall at length cover all the land with their 
grateful shade. 

It was with these views, that, at their annual 
meeting in 1866, the members of the Mission 
to eastern Turkey unanimously passed the fol- 
lowing — 

20 



300 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



RESOLUTIONS. 

1. " That our primary duty as missionaries 
is to seek the establishment of living, indepen- 
dent churches, complete from the first in hav- 
ing pastors, and aiming at a speedy and com- 
plete independence of foreign aid." 

2. " That, to secure this result, we need to 
aid in the establishment of merely educational 
institutions only so far as, among ignorant and 
degraded communities, they are essential in or- 
der to enable the people to study the Bible." 

3. " That we witness with painful solicitude 
the adoption of a different policy in some sec- 
tions, especially in giving to Protestant commu- 
nities, for consecutive years, a gospel so entirely 
free as to encourage in them the idea, that, in 
listening to it, they do rather than receive a 
favor, thereby hindering, rather than helping 
on, the primary objects of missionary labor." 

No one who has read the story of Paul's mis- 
sionary labors, and listened to his rebuke of the 
foolish Galatians, who had been so soon " be- 
witched" to turn aside to another gospel, — or 
who hears his almost despairing lamentation, 



THE PROSPECT. 



301 



" No man stood with me ; " " All they which are 
in Asia be turned away from me ; " can for a 
moment suppose that we anticipate unin- 
terrupted success. We have not had it thus far, 
and, if the fact has not been put in a strong 
light, it is because, in looking back over these 
ten years of missionary life, my mind has not 
loved to dwell upon the days of darkness, when 
the ingratitude and the inconstancy of even 
those who appeared to be real Christians has 
made us feel and say, " Were not we here by 
Christ's command, we could not remain among 
such a people." 

We are grateful now that so many are doing 
so well, and especially do we rejoice in having, 
in the native ministry, such efficient helpers even 
in that special work which is committed to us. 
I do not believe that, taken as a whole, a more 
earnest, noble, self-denying, humble, in a word, 
a more Christian band of workers for the Mas- 
ter, is found anywhere, than are those native 
pastors and preachers with whom it is our 
privilege to labor. And one of our greatest 
sources of encouragement is the present affee- 



802 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

tionate union of feeling and action between 
them and us. Yet the time may come when 
they, like Diotrephes, shall refuse to receive us, 
and even seek to imbitter the minds of their 
churches against us. 

If that hour come, and come soon, we shall 
try to meet it as Christian men should, and in 
no case to feel that such disaffection from us 
proves that the churches are not vines of the 
Master's planting. They may even turn away 
from the faith ; but, till that hour come, we will 
hope better things, and things that accompany 
salvation. 

We hope, — we believe, — that the good work 
which the Lord has begun will go on and in- 
crease till all the land be pervaded with its in- 
fluence. Chiefly as a result of the precious 
revival in the winter of 1866-67, two churches 
were formed in 1867, and another is about to 
be formed ; and our hope is that in coming 
years yet richer pentecostal blessings will bring 
into life churches of Christ in scores of villages. 

Among the eighteen hundred people, includ- 
ing over two hundred hopeful Christians, who 



THE PROSPECT. 



303 



met to worship outside the chapel walls on Har- 
poot hill, April, 1867, were some who had 
come three, four, and five days' journey to be 
present on that " high day." There were rep- 
resentatives from two-score cities and villages, 
in some of which are already independent 
churches, and in all of which Christian work 
has made more or less progress, and will, as 
we hope, ere the lapse of another ten years, be 
completed, so far as it is our duty to do it. 

It is said that the ledge on which a cele- 
brated light-house is built was uncovered but 
twenty minutes at low water, and required two 
years ,to prepare its surface to receive the foun- 
dation-stones. This work done, five years 
more were consumed in the wearisome labor of 
laying the first few courses ; but, this over, a 
single year sufficed to carry the structure to 
completion, to begin its century work of point- 
ing benighted and tempest-tossed mariners to 
the harbor of safety. 

Seven years and more did we labor before 
the foundations were prepared for the first 
Christian church to be fixed in its place as a 



304 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHBATES, 



corner-stone in the spiritual temple to be 
erected ; but, now that the preparatory founda- 
tion work has been done, and the task of erec- 
tion commenced, our hope is that the subse- 
quent labor will go on with ever-increasing 
rapidity to its completion. 

That it is the purpose of Him who has begun 
this good work to carry it on to completion, we 
can not doubt. 

Sometimes, in early spring, the morning 
light shows the plain of Harpoot covered with 
a dense fog, the deposit of the past night's 
darkness and chill, which seems a vast leaden 
sea, its farther shores the distant moun- 
tains. But by and by the sun rises, and, at 
first agitating the outspread mass, and here 
and there revealing an outcropping hill, at 
length lifts and dispels it all, or pours it over 
the Taurus to be dissipated by more southern 
heats; and the populous plain, in its vernal 
bloom and beauty, lies outspread before us. 

A deeper, deadlier mist of superstition and 
sin, the deposit of a longer night of spiritual 
darkness, has covered its people, and, rising 



THE PROSPECT. 



305 



higher, buried all the laud beneath its chilling 
weight of death. But already has the Sun of 
Righteousness arisen, and here and there out- 
springing forms of spiritual life and beauty, in 
living Christian churches, tell that He too shall 
at length dissipate all the deadly gloom, and 
pour his own light and life in upon the dark- 
ened populations so long buried beneath it. 



CHAPTER XII. 




THE FOUR WANTS. 
Come over and help us. — Acts xvi. 9. 

;OME must come, others help those who 
come. All must in some way help on the 
missionary work, that work which the 
church is specially commissioned to do. 
Let us first inquire how those who remain at 
home, how the vast majority of those who have 
the gospel, are to aid in giving it to the perish- 
ing. Or, to put the question in another form, 
How are those who stay to help those who go ? 

To one fresh from the foreign mission-field, 
nothing connected with the work causes more 
surprise and pain than the ignorance of the great 
mass of professedly Christian people upon mis- 
sionary matters. Many persons, who at times 
manifest an almost romantic interest in mis- 

306 



THE FOUR WANTS. 



307 



sionaries, seem to know as little about their 
work, and about the condition and wants of the 
heathen world, as if the missionaries and the 
heathen were inhabitants of another planet. 
There are some, perhaps many, exceptions ; men 
and women who follow the laborers to their 
fields, and can tell something of the work, of 
the hindrances to its progress, and of the char- 
acter of its successes ; who know, in short, all 
which persons at home could be expected to 
know of a distant people and work, and who, 
as a result of this knowledge, feel and manifest 
a deep interest in the cause. But the majority 
show clearly, that, except as now and then a 
missionary address or some special article in a 
newspaper calls attention to the missionary 
work, they use no means to inform themselves 
upon it. The fact that so lamentably small an 
edition of the Missionary Herald and other 
missionary publications is called for, and that of 
these so many go to fill the waste-basket, shows 
that the idea of keeping themselves well in- 
formed on such matters has lodged itself in 
comparatively few minds. 



808 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

Now, it is not too much to say that persons 
can not feel an efficient interest in a subject of 
which they are so ignorant. In earlier days, 
before the press of other benevolent interests 
came in to engross attention, the monthly con- 
cert, with its regular supply of missionary 
news, kept alive a very general interest in the 
subject of missions ; but those days are past, 
and other causes now divide the time and inter- 
est of the concert of prayer with that of for- 
eign missions, and often take the lion's share ; 
while, in a large minority, if not a majority of 
the churches, such a thing as a concert of 
prayer for missions is unknown, or, if sus- 
tained, is a thinly-attended and lifeless meet- 
ing. In this state of things, it is not surpris- 
ing that so many Christians and churches man- 
ifest so little practical interest in the mission- 
ary work. How can a person manifest an un- 
felt interest, and how feel an interest in a work 
of which he knows little or nothing ? 

The first way, then, in which the friends of 
the missionary work are to help it on, is to in- 
form themselves, and endeavor to inform oth- 



THE FOUR WANTS. 



309 



ers, of its character and demands. If, as one 
way of doing this, every subscriber for the 
Herald, and other missionary publications, and 
each reader of them, would endeavor to add 
one or more to the list of subscribers and read- 
ers, a great and good work would be done. 

" Help us," then, by following the mission- 
aries with an intelligent scrutiny, inquiring 
whether we are really doing the work you, or 
rather the Master, sent us to do. 

A second way of helping is by prayer. This 
is no place to dwell upon the power of prayer 
as a missionary agency. All praying persons, 
at least, confess that power, and all must con- 
fess that the failure of the church at large to 
use it is one of the crying sins of this pro- 
fessedly missionary age. 

From the want of accompanying prayer to 
make it efficient for good, much of the money 
that is given fails to carry a blessing with it. 
The feeling is too common that the duty of 
praying for those who sit in darkness is to be 
discharged regularly, once a month, by those 
present as substitutes for the body of the church 



310 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

in the monthly concert ; or that the petition for 
the heathen is to keep company with that 
formal one for God's " ancient covenant people, 
the Jews," so often used by some to round a 
devotional sentence. The great majority of 
Christ's professed people, even in Christian 
America, do not pray as they should for the 
missionary work, either at home or abroad. 
It is too often forgotten that even the promised 
enlargement of the church is to come only in 
answer to the prayers of God's people. At 
the close of a chapter rich in promised bless- 
ings to his church, God says to the prophet 
Bzekiel, " Thus saith the Lord God, I wilj. yet 
for this be inquired of by the house of Israel 
to do it for them ; I will increase them with 
men like a flock." 

It is a fact full of blessing to the cause, that 
here and there is found a praying father or 
mother in Israel, the burden of whose daily se- 
cret petitions is that the Lord of the harvest 
will send forth laborers into his harvest, and 
guide and bless them in doing his harvest- 



THE FOUR WANTS. 



311 



work.* Would that their number were in- 
creased a thousand-fold ! The glad day of 
promise would then soon come, when Christ 
shall have the heathen for his inheritance, and 
the uttermost parts of the earth for his posses- 
sion. 

With these two agencies for helping on the 
missionary work efficiently used, with the pro- 
fessed friends of Christ intelligently prayerful 
for the coming of that day, the third agency, of- 
ferings of money by the people, would not be so 
difficult to obtain as they now are, requiring 
unceasing efforts on the part of those placed 
in control of the pecuniary department, and at 
times causing no little anxiety lest the nig- 
gardly contributions of so many professed 
friends of Christ, and the utter neglect of oth- 
ers to give at all, should bring disaster upon 
the cause. 

* Said an aged " mother in Israel " to me, some weeks since, " Sir, I 
read the Missionary Herald through, and whenever any special re- 
quest for prayer is made, I note it on the prayer-list in my closet to 
be remembered daily." The memory of that " prayer-list " will be 
ever fresh and pleasant, and often give cheer when the thought of 
the thousands who know little and care less for " foreign missions " 
would sadden the heart, 



312 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



It is a fact too evident to be doubted, that 
vast numbers of the professed followers of 
Christ — it is to be feared a majority of those 
whose names are enrolled in the church books 
— are living for themselves, and not for Him 
who bought them. They first supply all their 
own wants, and then, if anything is left, bestow 
it in "charity" upon the benevolent causes 
which are presented and urged upon them 
sufficiently to secure a miserable pittance, just 
enough to silence the claims of conscience, or 
get rid of the collector. 

How the spirit of Him who said, " Freely ye 
have received, freely give," entering into these 
shriveled, selfish souls, would expand and enno- 
ble them ! 

And if they are indeed Christ's, if they have 
perchance a spark of love for him in their 
hearts, the best way to kindle it to a flame is to 
set them at work, thinking of and praying for the 
darkened millions for whom he died, but who, 
largely through their neglect: and covetousness, 
are perishing in darkness and sin. 

All the u help " needed for the missionary 



THE FOUR WANTS. 



313 



cause might indeed be summed up by saying, 
that, to advance that cause, whether at home 
or abroad, those who profess to love Christ 
must have his spirit. That which really helps 
the cause in one place tends to help it as a 
whole. He who truly loves Christian work in 
one place loves it in all places. There is no 
ground for the distinction made by some, who 
talk of feeling an interest in home missions, but 
none in foreign. Such a professed interest in 
the " home work," when examined, is usually 
found to mean "no interest at all in any Chris- 
tian work." There is a vast deal of sleeping- 
car religion of men who seem to suppose they 
have a free pass to heaven, who present them- 
selves regularly at the religious services of the 
Sabbath, and who say to their souls, as they 
leave the house of God, " Soul, thou hast 
much righteousness laid up for the ensuing 
week ; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be mer- 
ry, as the world does, till the coming Sabbath." 
Such persons need first conversion to Christ, 
and then to the cause of missions ; and what 
the churches need is, that all those who are en- 



314 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



rolled in their books become living, effective 
members, walking with Christ and working for 
him. When this is done, the wants of the 
missionary work will be all supplied. 

The fourth and last want is more missionaries. 
And here a few words in regard to the hind of 
men needed. There is a great deal of misap- 
prehension on this point, even on the part of 
some who attempt to direct others, which, if 
shared by the candidates for the foreign field, 
would keep some at home who ought to go 
abroad, and send some abroad who ought to 
stay at home. 

A prominent newspaper, not long since, gave 
remarkable linguistic power as one quality neces- 
sary to a missionary, setting forth the imaginary 
necessity laid upon the poor polyglot to use 
many languages, and, in so doing, painted that 
one man needed, among scores of preaching mis- 
sionaries, who is to do the work of a Dr. Riggs, 
in giving to different nations the Bible in their 
own tongue. Very few missionaries are able 
to preach in more than one tongue ; and the 
man who can use his native tongue correctly 



THE FOUIl WANTS. 



and easily can, in all ordinary circumstan- 
ces, acquire another in which to preach in a 
foreign field. No halting, stumbling, stutter- 
ing speaker, surely, — no man who can not ex- 
press his ideas clearly and intelligibly in his 
native tongue, — should go abroad ; but if one 
fitted for the work in other respects has the 
gift of utterance at home, let no polyglot ghost 
frighten him from going abroad. 

The first few days in the country will ordi- 
narily give a man tongue enough to begin to 
do good by winning the hearts of the people 
by saying " Good-morning," " Good-evening," 
if no more ; and, in eastern Turkey, less than 
a year usually suffices to enable one to begin to 
preach written if not extempore sermons. 

Another missionary qualification of our news- 
paper friend was politeness ; and the poor man 
was sent to shine in courts, to meet and con- 
verse with embassadors, etc. For that portrait 
sat the late Dr. Dwight, of Constantinople, who, 
besides being an admirable missionary, was able 
thus to shine among the great. But some of 
us, who have spent half a score of years in the 

21 



316 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



field, have not seen any embassador yet, except 
our own, who are usually plain, common-sense 
republicans like ourselves. If obliged to sit for 
that newspaper portrait, not only a majority of 
the missionaries, but perhaps some embassadors 
with them, would be obliged to come home. 

More necessary to the missionary than this 
polish of the gentleman is that trait which made 
a good old woman say of her pastor, — " He's 
not a bit of a gentleman. Why, he can come 
in and sit down by the wash-tub of such as 
me ! " This ability to feel at home, as an em- 
bassador of Kins; Jesus, with the humblest of 
his disciples, is infinitely better than any mere 
external polish, which may or may not be a 
help in the missionary work, in which kind 
feeling, with the power of manifesting it, is the 
essential thing, so far as winning men is con- 
cerned. 

Wrote a missionary, years ago, — " Let no 
man come to India who can not spend three 
hours daily in heavenly meditation and prayer, 
and enjoy it." To which we may reply, Let 
no one call himself a disciple of Christ, at all, 



THE FOUR WANTS. 



317 



who wouldn't "enjoy" heavenly meditation all 
day long, if allowable, and who doesn't love to 
" pray always." We may add, too, Let no 
man come to eastern Turkey who, with the 
constant call for active Christian labor pressing 
upon him, could find leisure to spend so much 
time in devotional exercises. Before coming, 
let him take lessons from the Master, and learn 
to be at times so " beside himself" with com- 
passionate zeal for preaching the word to the 
perishing multitudes as to deprive himself of 
his meals to do it, and find the needed oppor- 
tunity for prayer only by night. Let him learn 
to pray while at work, as well as before and 
after it. In this way, that larger portion of 
time, which must be spent among men in 
efforts to do them good, will not do his own 
soul harm by separating it from his Saviour, 
whom he met in the closet, but rather will do 
him good by that actual experience of his pres- 
ence and aid which was there sought. 

One quality, not specified by the newspaper 
before alluded to, as necessary to the mission- 
ary, but which can not be dispensed with, is 



318 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



common sense, as opposed on one side to all 
mere dreaming, and on the other to that im- 
practical make which is ever preventing some 
unfortunates from calling things by their right 
names, and taking them by the handle. It 
hardly need be said that a brief experience of 
actual missionary life will be a sufficient cure 
for any amount of school-girl romancing. It 
is also true that a mere student of theory rather 
than practice — one who is ever trying to see 
things, not as they are, but as they should be™ 
were far better employed in his study or studio 
at home than amid the sometimes intensely 
practical realities of missionary experience. 

There must be, too, none of that scrupulous 
precision, that sensitive and fastidious nicety of 
taste, which, if not incompatible with common 
sense, is seldom found in union with it. To 
speak of nothing else, the man who has this 
can never gain a practical knowledge of the 
language of the people. The inevitable pros- 
pect of using a word now and then in some 
other than the approved sense, and sometimes 
of exciting the risibilities of his hearers, would 



THE FOUR WANTS. 319 

make the fastidious man, unless he be a lin- 
guistic prodigy, so slow in acquiring the use of 
their tongue as to leave the heathen to perish 
before he could speak to them of Jesus. 

If under the term common sense is not in- 
cluded that knowledge of hitman nature which 
is another essential missionary qualification, it 
may at least be said that the want of this 
knowledge seems often to be a result of that 
unpractical theorizing w r hich dooms a man to 
be the victim of each new deceiver, because, 
instead of looking at things and men as they 
are, and he has seen them to be, he persists in 
accepting each new-comer's statement of them. 
If the poor man has in the abstract a knowl- 
edge of human nature, and the power to read 
character, he is seldom able to use his reading 
in a practical way, and thus, while knowing 
men, he is as if he knew them not. The mis- 
sionary who, by a want of this necessary gift of 
discerning spirits, should gain among the peo- 
ple a reputation as wanting in practical shre wd- 
ness, would soon be the victim of a sorry lot of 
converts. 



320 TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 

It is hardly necessary to say that two other 
qualities needed are courage and firmness of 
purpose. Without the former, the missionary 
would often lack the power to meet the emer- 
gencies which arise in the radical work of un- 
dermining old institutions and establishing new 
ones, which he is sent to do, and would settle 
down into that most unfortunate of misplaced 
men, — a missionary victim of conservative 
timidity. 

Without firmness, or, I may rather say, with- 
out inflexible adhesion of purpose in essentials, 
enabling him to fix upon a plan of campaign, 
and, come what may, to carry it out in all es- 
sential particulars, the missionary might dis- 
play talent at ditching, and changing base, but 
could never capture the strongholds of the en- 
emy. The way to these can be opened only by 
a stubborn and courageous adhesion to the gos- 
pel base and plan of campaign. 

It can not be denied, that, in deciding what 
persons should go to the foreign field, multi- 
tudes look at the question from a wrong stand- 
point. Some have felt that every man should 



THE FOUR WANTS. 



321 



go who desires to consecrate himself to the 
work. As well might we say, that, in carrying 
on that other campaign against the powers of 
evil, President Lincoln should have appointed 
as general any one who felt called to consecrate 
himself to the labors of that office. 

If, indeed, a too common idea of the mission- 
ary work were the right one, — if missionaries 
were men called to do the comparatively small 
work of the pastorate among little companies 
of converted heathen, — then might almost any 
one consecrate himself to it; then might the 
churches give to this work those supposed to be 
unequal to the demands of the home field. 
But, since this is not the case, since men are 
wanted, not to be mere captains of companies in 
the Lord's host, and that too where there are 
plenty of people to set them right when going 
wrong, but rather men able to go alone and 
win back revolted subjects of King Jesus to 
their allegiance, teach them to be soldiers in his 
service, choose, appoint, and train the captains 
and other officers, and, having thus prepared 
and disciplined an army loyal to Christ, to lead 



322 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



it on to conflict, and, having won the victory, 
and put down the rebellion, to do the work of 
reconstruction upon the basis of Christian loy- 
alty ; in other words, since the missionary 
work is a campaign, and that an apostolic one, 
then is the call rightfully made upon the church 
to consecrate to it her choicest sons and daugh- 
ters, the men and the women whose absence 
will be felt at home, and felt abroad too in the 
accession of strength which they bring to the 
missionary force. 

The men who "can be spared " are not the 
ones wanted on missionary ground ; but the 
demand is that the church make the missionary 
work her " first-class " work, giving to it her 
choicest men. Not necessarily those who are 
the greatest scholars, — such are often scholars 
merely, good only for accumulating stores of 
learning,* — but the men who, with warm, lov- 
ing Christian hearts, have the power to make 
their thoughts and feelings known to others; 
men who can communicate ; men of earnest 
purpose and magnetic force of character, who 



THE FOUR WANTS. 



323 



can not help making their influence felt by 
those with whom they come in contact. 

Never before was the call so loud as now for 
such men to enter the foreign field ; and, not- 
withstanding the home call so often pleaded as 
an excuse for staying here, it can not be 
doubted that the marching orders to u go " are 
still in force for all who are. fitted for the for- 
eign field. It is a fatal error which takes it for 
granted that all are to stay who are not in 
some special way called to go. At bottom of 
this lies that other idea, unsustained alike by 
reason and revelation, that God proposes to 
finish up his work in America before beginning 
it elsewhere. Some good people, in their over- 
weening estimate of the importance of our 
country, seem to suppose that God has decided 
to make his home here, to expend here the 
efforts and contributions of the churches in 
fitting up a drawing-room, with its costly array 
of furniture, and in which they, poor, selfish 
souls, propose to enjoy themselves, at the ex- 
pense of the perishing, to whom the Master 
bids us give his gospel. Already has he begun 



324 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



to dissipate these visions of pious and luxuri- 
ous selfishness, and compel us to see that the 
best way to prepare to receive him is to labor 
to save those for whom he shed his blood. As 
if it were not enough that the man of sin has 
invaded and threatens to subdue our country 
and rule it for himself, a highway has been 
opened across the ocean to neglected China, 
and thousands, of her idolatrous population, 
soon to be increased to millions, are bringing 
their temples and gods to invade the land, and 
to possess it too, unless the tardy, sleeping 
church awake to the duty of meeting the enemy 
on his own ground. They are much mistaken 
who suppose that the work of evangelizing the 
Chinese can be best done here on our own soil. 
It should be remembered, that, whatever they 
may do in the future, they do not now, like the 
Irish, come to make their homes here ; but, with 
all their home associations and attachments 
still fresh and strong, come prepared to cling, 
in their temporary exile, with still greater tena- 
city to their ancestral faith, and — having seen, 
not the excellencies of our Christian system, 



THE Foun WANTS. 325 

but rather the vices which, in spite of it, still 
dishonor our land — to go back more inaccessi- 
ble than before to Christian influence. When 
in Turkey we meet a man who has traveled in 
Christian countries, we find one who is almost 
surely so prejudiced against the truth, or its 
professed adherents, as to be inaccessible to us ; 
and we may expect that the same will be true 
in China. If, then, we would evangelize that 
land, we must sow the good seed in its own 
soil. 

Not improbably, the apostle James, by some 
such course of reasoning, justified himself in 
settling down in the home work, accepting a 
call to the Jerusalem pastorate, when the Mas- 
ter had told him and his fellows only to " tarry 
there till they should be endued with power 
from on high " for the missionary work. He 
hoped, doubtless, to exert a great influence for 
good over the Jews, and others who crowded 
annually from foreign lands to the mother city. 
But, instead, we find that " certain came from 
James," and entangled Peter and Barnabas in 
the net of their Jewish compromises, while his 



;326 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



church-members everywhere dogged Paul's 
steps, in the interest of the ceremonial law ; and 
at length the influential home pastor persuades 
even the great apostle to the Gentiles himself 
into a politic compromise to secure peace, 
which results in sending him a prisoner from 
Jerusalem to Csesarea, and thence to Rome, and 
in closing the Acts of the Apostles. 

How much different might have been the 
history of James and of the Christian church, 
had he gone elsewhere to do the work which 
the Master gave him ! And may we not say, 
How much different would be the history of 
the church of this age, and of some Jameses and 
Jonahs in it, if, instead of clinging to the home 
altars and firesides,, and seeking for place here, 
in what is too largely a conflict between Chris- 
tians of different names, — if, instead of waiting 
for calls to city pulpits and professorial chairs 
here at home, they would heed the Master's 
command to go and give his gospel to the mil- 
lions who have not yet heard his name, and 
plant his church among them. 

If the views presented in these pages are 



THE FOUR WANTS. 



327 



correct, the work of foreign missions differs in 
some important particulars from what it is 
commonly supposed to be. Its aim is not to 
convert the world, but to evangelize it ; not to 
finish Christian work on missionary ground, 
but to begin it under such conditions as, by the 
divine blessing, will insure its progress and ulti- 
mate triumph. The work of the missionary is 
a primary, fundamental one. He is to deposit 
the germs of Christian institutions for future 
development, to set in operation forces which 
will go on ever repeating and enlarging them- 
selves through successive generations, till the 
millennial day shall come, in the universal and 
perfect development of the Christian system. 
Nor is the work one of mere faith. These 
pages have shown that great results may be 
speedily seen. 

While, then, the work affords opportunity 
for more foresight, for a greater scope of 
thought and effort, than is generally supposed, 
it gives, also, promise of richer and more speedy 
fruits than are commonly anticipated. 

Not many years of labor are demanded for a 



328 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



man, by use of native agency, to repeat and 
increase his influence many fold. One result 
of missionary effort in the Harpoot field has 
been to put seventy-eight persons at work in 
different departments of Christian labor, and 
the number is rapidly increasing, all busy in 
effective efforts to elevate and save the commu- 
nity. The number of native helpers thus at 
work in the mission to eastern Turkey is one 
hundred and seventeen. 

The mechanics of Chicago have shown us 
how a city may be lifted from its place to a 
higher level ; entire granite blocks, with all 
their busy hum of industry undisturbed, rising 
slowly and almost imperceptibly into the air. 
Unseen beneath all, the engineer has bedded 
his thousands of screws, which, at his whistle's 
shrill signal, are turned together to lift the 
weighty pile surely to its place. The mission- 
ary who does merely a personal, pastoral work 
turns a single screw, and by it may break off 
and raise a fragment of society ; but he who 
follows the apostolic plan becomes a master 
workman, one who fixes and mans his multi- 



THE FOUR WANTS. 329 

plied forces beneath all the social fabric, and, at 
the signal of the gospel trumpet, puts them all 
at work, slowly but surely doing their appoint- 
ed task of lifting the mass about him, from the 
depths of ignorance and spiritual death, to in- 
telligence and Christian life, with all their kin- 
dred blessings. 

In chapters ninth and tenth I have partially 
shown how this work of intellectual, moral, 
and religious elevation is going on in the Har- 
poot mission-field. It is for a similar but 
greater work in other stations of this and 
other missions that workmen are wanted. 

Shall they be had, or shall the call for re- 
cruits to take the places of those who have 
fallen at their posts in such service still be 
made in vain ? 

te Shall we, whose souls are lighted 

By wisdom from on high, 
Shall we to men benighted 

The lamp of life deny ? 
Salvation! oh, salvation ! 

The joyful sound proclaim, 
Till earth's remotest nation 

Has learned Messiah's name." 



330 



TEN YEARS ON THE EUPHRATES. 



May it not be that, when the millennial day 
shall come, all the glorified saints in heaven 
will unite with Bishop Heber in singing the 
u Missionary Hymn " in some such form as 
this ? — 

" From Greenland's icy mountains, 

From India's coral strand, 
Where Afric's sunny fountains 

Rolled down their golden sand; 
From many an ancient river, 

From many a palmy plain, 
They called us to deliver 

Their land from error's chain. 

e6 Then we, whose souls were lighted 

By wisdom from on high, 
Did not to men benighted 

The lamp of life deny. 
Salvation ! oh, salvation ! 

The joyful sound proclaim, 
For earth's remotest nation 

Has learned Messiah's name." 

If indeed it be thus sung, will not some 
voices be silent then ? 



THE END. 



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